


The Art Of Remembrance

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, F/M, Frostbite, Hypothermia, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 44
Words: 81,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22073836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: Sokka spies an injured woman crossing the tundra; all she remembers is that her name is Azula and that she escaped from an institution.
Relationships: Azula/Sokka (Avatar)
Comments: 125
Kudos: 268





	1. A Landscape Unrelenting

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is one of a few that I am testing the waters with. I have a bunch of ideas and am trying to see which one I enjoy the most and/or is the best received.

The snow crunches beneath Sokka’s feet as he crosses the tundra. He is almost home, almost. And thank Raava for that, even beneath his gloves his hands a beginning to sting with the cold and his teeth are chattering pretty good. 

He supposes that a good day’s worth of fishing is worth the trouble of having to cross the snowy landscape. He hoists his catches over his shoulder and trudges the rest of the way home. With a huff he sets the bag on the floor and greets Katara with a wave. “Where’s dad?”

“He’s telling stories to the kids.” 

“Like the ones he used to tell us?” Sokka asks. 

“Sort of.” Katara shrugs. “I think that they wanted to hear stories about the war this time.” 

“Well, I brought dinner.” Sokka gestures to the fish. 

“Did you do any hunting?” 

“Just fishing this time.” Sokka replies. “I’m going to find dad and let him know that dinner’s here.”

“You do that.” Katara replies. “I’ll be here.” 

Sokka takes a final look back at the house before wandering out into the cold again. With any luck, his father will be close buy and he won’t have to search the whole village, not that he has too much ground to cover. The tribe is slowly expanding, growing out into what it should have been had the Fire Nation not attacked. It still has a long way to go. 

Sokka stretches his arms. He supposes that it is nice to be home again and to go back to the mundane tasks. Tasks that don’t involve risking his life and running from angsty princes, deadly princesses, and power hungry firelords with questionable title choices. Sokka snickers to himself, “phoenix king.” The whole point of a phoenix is that it’s reborn, he won’t let that one rise again. 

From the hillside, he looks off into the tundra. Snow glitters beneath his feet and stars above his head. The land is vast and foreboding but with a beauty like no other. The wind howls, sending a massive flurry down upon him. He imagines that the polar bear dogs and penguins have long since sought shelter. 

He can already tell that a storm is abrew and not a soul should be out in it. Muchless the small figure trekking through the snow. 

Even from a distance he can tell that she is trembling. She takes a few final stumbling steps before pitching forward. Sokka watches her sink to her knees. And then her cheek meets the snowy ground below. 

Sokka spares the warmth and safety of the village a final look before making his way back out and into the snow. His heart seizes, he doesn’t know how he has lost sight of her her already. He listens but the woman makes no sound, not even the faintest cry for help. He calls out. Still she doesn’t answer. He thinks that she must be out colder than the snow itself. 

“Come on, where are you?” He mutters aloud. For all of the tracking and hunting he does, he should be able to find her. He scans the ground again, the wind howls in his ears reminding him that he doesn’t have much time. 

It could happen in an instant; a complete white out and then finding his way back to the tribe--even at such a short distance--will be hell.

He trudges forward wondering if he should retreat and bring help and then he spies a bright red ribbon. He is glad for the ribbon, he wouldn’t have spotted her otherwise. She lays in a crumpled heap, barely making a sound. Her breathing is dreadfully shallow. 

He doesn’t have time to be fully thankful for the ribbon, not with the wind whipping so ferociously. As carefully as he can manage, he scoops her into his arms, her cheek is frigid against his neck. She is shaking violently. Enough to send vibrations through him. He thanks Raava again for the girl is mercifully light. Even still, the snow, deep as it is, makes carrying her a task. He resents having taken his snow shoes off. 

He tries not to jar her too much with his footsteps, but he can’t help it with the snow as deep as it is. Every footstep sends a wave of anxiety over him. He can hear Hakoda telling him that too much movement can trigger a heart attack. He hasn’t yet seen it for himself and he doesn’t want to.

By the time he reaches the village he is panting softly and shivering for himself. He takes a moment of pause to catch his breath, watching as his shaky and erratic ones dissipate in the sky. 

In the light he can see that her nose and cheeks are red and that snow clings to her lashes and hair. He can’t imagine that his own face looks much different. He takes a deep breath and readjusts his hold on her before making the last stretch of the trek into the house. 

“Katara, help me get some blankets out! I don’t know how long she’s been out there for.” 

A flicker of confusion crosses Katara’s face before it is replaced by a very vague understanding. “I’ll get them and then I’ll try to find dad.” 

Sokka shakes his head. “There’s a big blizzard, dad is going to stay wherever he is and we’re going to stay here until it’s over.” He sets the woman in front of the fire, she stirs just enough to reassure him. 

“If he’s outside then…”

“He’s not outside, nobody in the tribe is going to just leave him out there. Worst case, he’s having an awkward dinner with strangers.”

“Sokka, we’ve been through a war, I can handle a snow storm.”

“You can fight Fire Nation soldiers, Katara. But you can’t punch a blizzard.” Softer, more reassuringly he adds, “dad can take care of himself, that’s where you get it from.” 

Her own expression softens. “I’m gonna go get those blankets.” 

For the time being, Sokka strokes the fire, coaxing it to a brighter, hotter flare. He steals a glance at the woman. It finally has time to settle in just how precarious her condition is. The corner of her mouth is split and bruised and her lower lip is slightly swollen--also bleeding lightly. Carefully he moves some of her hair to find a cut on her brow. She had been in some sort of altercation. Recent too from the prominence of the bruises on her pale skin and the freshness of the blood. He gets the sense that the cold had frozen it before it even had the chance to coagulate. 

With the fire blazing to his content, he moves back over to her, her clothing is soaked. He recalls again, Hakoda’s warning to avoid excess movement. As tenderly as he can manage he cuts away her wet clothing and tosses the articles aside. He casts his own wet clothing aside and bundles her back into the blankets already in the room. 

He doesn’t know if she is alert enough to hear him but he thinks that it would do well to try, “I’m Sokka. My sister Katara is going to bring you some blankets and maybe some stew.” He pauses. “I guess that I can start on the stew.”

She clutches the blankets tighter to herself, her lips part but the only sound the spills from them is a very weak mumble. He watches her try to sit up, her attempt is clumsy and uncoordinated. “Don’t do that!” He says quickly. “Just lay down and try to warm up.” 

He meets her gaze and it dawns upon him that she is Fire Nation. He shudders at the thought of her cheek on his neck; a firebender should never feel that cold. He shudders twice over when he is struck by a sense of familiarity. He steps away from her and into the kitchen with his stomach tying itself into knots. 

He gathers a small pot and a few ingredients. Before re-entering the room, he fills the pot with water. The firebender still hasn’t moved much. He fixes the pot over the fire and begins dumping in ingredients for what he hopes will be edible seaweed stew. 

“Are you warming up?” He asks. He picks one of her hands up and pulls the mitten off. His stomach lurches again. “C-can you feel you fingers?” 

She shakes her head. Her speech is so slurred that he can barely make sense of it. “Not all of them.” 

And no wonder, the glove in his hand is torn by the pinky. He guesses that this also happened during whatever skirmish she was involved in. He removes the other glove, this hand is just as icy to the touch. “Can you flex your fingers.” He breathes a sigh of relief when she bunches her hand into a feeble fist and then unclenches them once more. He looks back at her left hand, the fingers on it are redder than her cheeks. 

Most of them anyhow. 

Her pinky is a sickly blackish-blue. 

He has seen it happen enough to know that it is dead. 

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her but he has an inkling that she already knows. He watches her nestle her damaged hand against her body. 

Sokka retrieves the pot and pours her a bowl of the stew. He helps her sit up. For the longest time, she simply holds her hands above the bowl, letting the steam warm her hands. He hadn’t noticed that Katara had returned. 

“She needs clothes.” 

Katara nods. “I think that she’ll fit in mine.” 

Sokka wraps her up from head to toe. “Here.” He says, he holds out a spoonful of seaweed stew. “Dad always has people eat something warm when this happens. He says that you need to be warm inside and out...or something like that.” He wishes that he would have let Katara find the man. He’d know exactly how to help her. 

He manages to feed her a few spoonfuls before her head seems to dip and sag. Slowly, Sokka props her up against the nearest sofa. Her eyes seem to dim, she blinks several times as she fights to keep herself at least semi-awake. He gives her a moment before offering another spoonful.

In closer proximity his speculations become more apparent. It isn’t just her eyes that are familiar to him. It is the shape of her nose and the structure of her cheeks and chin. “Azula?” He asks. 

Not that he expects an answer. As soon as her name leaves his lips, her eyes seem to roll back and her body goes limp. 


	2. Cod Or Salmon

The sickly feeling is growing in the pit of his stomach. Having fully slumped onto him he can hear and feel that her breathing has grown shallow again, irregular. The rise and fall of her chest is becoming increasingly inconsistent. Some dark part of him wonders if he should care. He tells himself that it might not be her at all, that it wouldn’t make sense for Azula to be anywhere near the tribes. In that vein he couldn’t chance letting someone innocent die. 

Who is he trying to fool, even if it is Azula, he doesn’t feel right letting her die either. 

Katara comes back with a bundle of clothes. “Katara, watch her for a minute, I’m going to find dad.” 

Katara’s brows furrow. “You’re what?! Look at it out there!” She gestures to the window. “You’re the one who told me to stay inside.”

“She’s not going to make it without dad, I don’t know how to take care of her.” He lifts her bundled form onto the sofa and lays her down. “I don’t think that waterbending can fix this.” 

Katara kneels down and inspects the firebender. “Sokka, I can’t lose you. Dad can’t lose you.” She watches him disappear into the other room. 

“You’re the one who always wanted to stop and help people out. Even if it could have gone terrible for us.” He calls.

Katara sighs. “How are you going to find your way home? I can barely see the tree a few feet away from the house.” 

“With this.” He reemerges with an armful of rope, netting, and cloth. “Dad and I keep them for fishing and hunting. I’ll only go as far as all of this can get me.” 

She bites her lip. “Be careful, Sokka. I’ll see what I can do for her.”

Sokka nods as he tugs his parka on and then his gloves, and another set of gloves, and--this time--a pair of snowshoes. 

“If you get too cold, please just go to the nearest house and stay there. Losing two people is worse than losing one.” 

And two alive is ideal, he thinks. He draws his hood over his head and casts a final look at who he assumes is Azula. He hopes that he has bundled her up tightly enough to keep her alive a little longer. 

He takes his first step into the snow storm. With a piercing slap, it shows him exactly what his task is going to be like. The cold is already intolerably biting. The wind screams at him, a shrill banshee wail with a frosty breath. He refuses to look back at the house. The warm house with the blazing fire...he shakes his head and takes another step. He’d last seen Hakoda at the center of town, which isn’t all too far from their own home. By the time he makes it to the first house, his teeth are chattering considerably and his fingers are pulsing. “Gran Gran?” 

“Sokka, what are you doing here?” 

He almost asks her the same before he remembers that she had volunteered to watch their neighbor’s children while they vacationed in the Fire Nation. They certainly chose the right time. “I’m trying to find dad, I need his help.” 

“Sokka…”

“It can’t wait, someone is going to die.” 

Kanna shushes him. “Not in front of the kids. What’s going on Sokka?” She whispers.

Quieter he replies, “I found someone in the snow and now I need to find dad. I’m going to stop in each house to warm up until I find dad. When I find him we’ll go as far as we can and if we start to get cold, we’ll take a break in the nearest house that will let us in.” He hopes to take as few of those as possible. “Do you know where dad is?”

Kanna nods, “Four houses over with Bato.” 

**.oOo.**

“...Gonna be fine.” The voice is distorted. 

“...warm....” Under the distortion she can’t tell if the voice is male or female. 

“...back soon...and…” Nor if there are one or many people speaking. 

She fades in and out but she can’t seem to ever wake herself in full. Even if she could she knows that she is too weak to do anything. Her body feels numb. Or maybe she doesn’t have one at all. Maybe she is already in some sort of between state, well on her way to the Spirit World.

She tries to open her eyes again but they are so heavy. 

She can’t feel…

She wants to feel…

“Careful!” It is a different voice. “Be very gentle.” 

There is only blackness but she finally does feel something. That something is warm and it is on her forehead. She is starting to feel more things; a tingling in her right hand, a pressure on her left, a sense that something is horribly amiss. 

“Not yet! Don’t let her wake up yet.” 

Like that she slips away again. 

She tries to fight it but there is no fight left in her. 

  
  


She is warm, very warm. Warmer than she has been in ages. She savors it with everything she has. Out in that tundra she had feared that the cold would never leave her, would wrap its icy fingers around her bones perpetually. Her cheek rubs against something fuzzy...or furry? It doesn’t matter, they are nearly the same in sensation. 

She doesn’t yet open her eyes because her head still spins. She rubs her fingers over the fuzz...the fur? 

She inhales and opens her eyes. The light is glaring. She tries to sit up but her head is still dazed. The dizziness within it sends her head back down. She fights to stay awake but her fight brings no fruition. 

“She’s really hot.” Says a voice. She feels a hand on her head. “We should give her some water.” The voice is female. 

Azula forces her eyes open, she squints against the light but only for a moment before the woman eclipses it. She utters a question but her moving lips make no sound. The once soothing warmth is now uncomfortable. She tries to sit up again but she is tangled in blankets. 

She doesn’t remember how she has gotten here. 

She doesn’t remember a lot of things. 

She needs to remember.

She needs to…

“You’re awake.” The woman notes. “Sokka was really worried, we weren’t sure if you would.” 

She stares at the woman.

“Here, have some water.” She holds out a waterskin and helps to unravel the blankets. “Gran Gran has some seaweed stew cooking, I promise that she’s a much better cook than Sokka.” 

“Sokka?” Azula murmurs. 

“He found you in the tundra.” 

Azula’s brows knit as she puts the pieces together. Some of them anyhow. “How bad was it?”

Katara winces and exchanges a look with someone behind her. Azula steals a look at this person and decides that he must be Sokka. 

“It’s...not good.” The man replies.

“Why?” She finds that she doesn’t have the patience for guessing games. “Just tell me how bad it is.” Perhaps she shouldn’t be so cross with the people who have saved her. She lays back down again, rolls onto her side, and presses her cheek into the cushion. 

“You got frostbite and hypothermia. And now you have a fever.” Says a third person. An older man. 

“Look at your hand.” The younger man adds. She isn’t sure if he is Sokka or if it is the older man. 

Instead of asking, Azula holds her hand out in front of her and flexes her fingers. 

“The other one.” Says the younger man. Azula holds up her left hand and flexes her fingers. Her four fingers. She swallows hard, feeling queasy. 

“We had to amputate it, it was already dead.” Noted the older man. 

All she can muster is a soft and hazy, “But I needed that.” 

“You’ll still be able to firebend and whatnot.” Says the older man. “I’ve seen men and women with greater injuries…” 

She isn’t quiet listening anymore. She wonders just how much more she will lose. Her eyes linger on her left hand. She thinks that maybe she should shed some tears, but some how she can’t manage. Instead she runs her undamaged fingers over the bandage until the woman says, “don’t do that you’re going to hurt yourself.” 

Azula withdraws her touch. “Am I missing anything else?”

“We were concerned about your toe.” Answered the younger man. “We decided to let you keep it though.” He laughs. She doesn’t share his sense of humor. 

“I’m going to see if Gran Gran has you stew ready.” The woman gets up. The older man follows her. 

“What were you doing out there?” The remaining man asks. 

“I was getting away from them.” 

“Them?” The man questions. “Who are they.”

She shrugs, “I don’t know. They’re them.” 

His eyes seem to light up with realization. “You need to go back there, it’s for your safety and everyone else’s, as soon as...”

She throws herself off of the couch and sends the both of them to the floor. She holds a small flame to his throat. It flickers orange as it licks dangerously close to his flesh. She hears footsteps and knows that she hasn’t got a chance. She is already feeling faint. She crumples to the ground again. 

“What’s going on?” It is the woman. 

“She tried to get up and she fell…”

She has to give him props for covering for her. 

She wakes up on the sofa once more. Her entire body screams and scolds her for dealing it more abuse. While her body shouts, the man is quiet. She doesn’t think that he realizes that she has come to. She gives a soft cough and he turns around. 

“Sorry, I thought that you were someone else.”

“Who did you think I am?” 

“My friend’s crazy sister.” He shrugs. “She’s dangerous...and completely nuts.” 

Azula eyes him blankly. “Oh.” 

“I’m Sokka, who are you?” 

“That’s a good question, I’ll let you know when I figure that out.” 

Sokka laughs, “you can just say that you don’t want to tell me.”

Azula massages her temples. Her head was already pounding a good one and this man is somehow managing to hike it up a notch. “They did something to me...that’s why I had to leave. I think that they did a lot of things to me…”

His smile fades, “you were serious? You really don’t know your name?”

“I know my name and that I escaped from an institution.” She replies. “But I don’t know the person behind that name. I don’t  _ remember  _ that person.” Azula watches his expression screw into the image of concern. 

“Your stew is getting cold.”

“I just told you that I don’t remember anything and that I escaped from an institution and you want to talk about rank-smelling stew!?”

Sokka flinches. “Look, eating makes me feel better when I’m all bandaged up. I’m just trying to help.” 

Azula exhales and her face softens. She holds her hands out. Sokka gives a half smile and sets the bowl in her hand. Truly the smell is unbearable, like fish and stale ocean water. But her stomach is empty and she can’t particularly afford to be choosy. She reluctantly has a spoonful. The texture is slimy and gushy against her tongue. She forces it down and bunches her face in disgust. After the third spoonful Sokka snickers, “if you hate it that much you can just ask for something else. We can fry up some fish.”

She puts the bowl aside. “How long were you going to make me suffer?” 

“Three more spoonfuls but then you did that thing with your face and I decided to show mercy.” 

“I’ll remember this, Sokka.” She vows. “And I don’t have a lot of memories, so it won’t be hard.” 

He bursts out laughing again. “Just make sure you store that memory next to the one of me dragging you out of the tundra.”

“Yeah, that one is a blur.” 

He leaves the room and in his absence she takes in her surroundings. The place is rather cozy; skins and furs line the walls and floors. They hang above the fireplace alongside a few pots, pans, ladles, and mugs on hooks. The fireplace is glowing warmly. She slowly gets to her feet and wanders closer to it, dragging with her a trail of blankets. She holds her hands out in front of the fire, taking special care to look everywhere but at the bandaged stub. The room is rather cluttered, the previously noted furs are spread out atop each other in a seemingly random array, some overlapping one another. She sees books and scrolls throughout the room and a chair pushed up against the wall. It has another blanket tossed over it. There are a few shelves lined with herbs and decorated with animal tusks and teeth. In another corner is a rack of weapons that ranged from primitive spears and clubs to rather intricate swords and modern hunting tools. 

“Cod or salmon?” Azula jolts at the sound of his voice. 

She shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never tried either.” 

“I’ll cook them both.” They sit in silence as the fish sizzle and pop. It doesn’t smell all too bad, not compared to the hellish odor that her other meal emitted. He hands her the cod and she takes a regrettably large bite. Her face bunches up again. 

“Alright, how about salmon?” 

She takes a significantly smaller bite. “I’m starting to think that I hated seafood.” 

He chuckles. “You’re definitely Fire Nation. Here, we had some fruits imported from your homeland and dad managed to get a moose-lion.” 

“Why didn’t you mention that before?” 

“Wanted you to try something new.”

She picks out a mango and savors the taste as Sokka begins cooking the moose-lion meat. She still feels dizzy and nauseous. She tries not to think about that too much. “Why did you help me? You could have died.” 

“That’s kind of what me and my friends do.” He shrugs. “Besides, if I didn’t I would have never gotten to see all of those priceless faces.” 

She lets her face go deadpan again. 

He shudders, “alright, that’s a scary face. You look way too much like  _ her  _ when you make it.” He pauses. “You said that you know your name?”

“Only because they kept saying it to me.” She confirms. 

“What is your name?” 

She tosses the mango pit into the fire. “They’ve been calling me Azula.”


	3. Quartz Hands

Sokka swallows, so he had been right. He eyes her silently for some time, until she shifts awkwardly and pretends to be invested in wrapping herself further into her blankets.

“Do you know who I am?” She breaks the silence.

Sokka bites the inside of his cheek as he weighs the pros and cons of telling her the truth.

“You do know me.” There is a confidence I her tone. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He confesses. “Sort of. We weren’t close.” 

“Who am I?” She asks with a sniffle. He offers her a tissue that she takes without hesitation. Her nose is still a shade of red. 

“I think that we should swap out your bandages.” He changes the subject. He catches her looking at her hand. “That must be hard to get used to.” 

Azula nods. “I’ll get over it.” Her words transition into a solemn sigh. “What I won’t get over is that you have more memories of me than I do.” 

“Can we talk about this some other time?” He asks as he unravels the bandages wrapped around her hand. 

“No.” But as soon as her hand is in view, she seems to change her mind, going entirely quiet. Her expression seems to dim. Sokka carefully dabs at the wound with some cleansing ointment. She gives a small hiss of pain at the initial contact before falling silent again. “You didn’t like me, did you?”

The question takes him aback. “Why would you think that?”

Azula shrugs. “Why else wouldn’t you tell me?” 

He sighs, “your life wasn’t exactly the best.” 

She stares at him, waiting for an elaboration. He doesn’t give it to her. Instead he admits, “no, we didn’t always get along.” He puts her hand in her lap, freshly bandaged. 

“Well now that you know who I am, why are you still helping me?” 

Sokka shrugs. “I don’t know, I guess it’s not fair to punish you for things that you don’t remember.” 

**.oOo.**

“Then help me remember.” She frowns. To have answers so close but equally distant is frustrating. “At least tell me one thing.” 

He thinks for a moment. “You used to bend blue fire.” He pauses, “maybe it’s only orange because you’re so hurt.”

She cradles her hand against her torso and stares at the blazing fire. There is a fluttering sensation in her belly and she doesn’t know if she should attribute it to still being in recovery or if it is the product of Sokka’s secrecy. 

Could things have really been so horrible that he finds it merciful to keep her in the dark. She supposes that it must have been if events transpired in a way that landed her in that frigid institution. 

“I can take you home.” Sokka offers. 

“Yes. Perhaps that will spark some recollection.” She nods. 

“Until then, I think that you should take up a different alias.” 

The knots in her stomach tighten that much more. Just what kind of past does she have? She begins to speculate that she is some sort of fugitive. That her entrapment had been deliberate. She swallows, “and why will that be necessary?” Her question is punctuated with a series of coughs. Agni, she feels terrible. Terrible and weak. She leans heavily against the couch. 

Maybe the unease is plain on her face or maybe the coughs have him taking pity on her soul, because his expression softens and he flashes a little smile, “it’ll probably be easier to travel that way. You’ll draw less attention.” 

And now she can’t tell if she had been an idol or a terrorist. She was tired before, the thought leaves her completely exhausted. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka sighs, she was already anxious and he is doing little to help. “Look, I can tell you a bit about yourself on the way to the Fire Nation. I’ll give us something to do.” 

Her mood seems to brighten, if only a little. “I suppose that I can wait a little longer.” 

“As soon as the weather clears up we can go. You don’t mind sea travel do you?” He nearly slaps his own forehead, “you don’t know do you?”

Azula seems to ponder for a moment before shrugging. “I’ll take my chances at sea before I test my luck out there again.” She nods towards the tundra. “It’s so empty out there. The way the wind howls…” She gives a slight shudder. 

“You don’t need to go out there again.”

“I shouldn’t have been out there in the first place.” She untangles herself from the blankets and stretches her arms. She sits back down almost immediately, holding her good hand to her head. 

“You okay?” 

“Dizzy.” She replies. 

“Why don’t you lay back down?”

Azula wanders back to the sofa and stretches herself upon it. She pulls the blankets up to her chin and clutches the as tightly to herself as she can. Sokka puts a hand on her forehead. “I’ll have Katara and Gran-Gran make you some herbal tea and medicine.” She doesn’t reply, seeming to have already drifted off into some half-awake state. 

Her breathing remains even. 

He spares her a look before making his way to the kitchen. He sighs to himself. He never thought that he’d find himself feeling bad for Azula of all people. But then, her company is much more pleasant to be in when her memories are subdued. 

“How is she?” Katara asks. 

“I think that she’s in the clear. She’s just got a cold and I think that the painkillers are making her sleepy.”

“I have some seaweed stew ready.”

“She doesn’t like it.” Sokka laughs. 

“Did you find out who she is and what she was doing out there?”

Sokka frowns. “She escaped from some kind of...place.” He pauses. 

“A place?” Katara quirks a brow?

“An institution of some kind.” He furrows his brows, having been struck by a sudden realization; Azula had been institutionalized on a Fire Nation island and she had already fled that one. Just where the hell was she? “I haven’t asked her what she meant by that.”

“Did you at least ask her name?”

Sokka hesitates, “she doesn’t remember it.” He stomach lurches with the lie. Really he ought to tell her, he can’t say why he didn’t. “She’s having trouble remembering a lot of things. She just knows that she was running away from...that place.” 

“Sometimes hypothermia leads to memory loss.” Hakoda notes from his seat at the table. “She was out there long enough…”

Though Sokka has a feeling that it runs deeper than that. Perhaps the hypothermia has exasperated it, but he has an inkling that her amnesia settled in long before the chill did. “I’ll find out what happened to her.” 

**.oOo.**

_ She is shivering violently, her body fully exposed. She can’t seem to focus on anything in the room.  _

_ No, it isn’t a room. It is a space. _

_ An empty, white space. A little pocket dimension, separate from the universe from which she came.  _

_ She rubs her hands on her biceps, finding that they are coated with a thick layer of glittering frost. Her breath is a visible black vapor. It surrounds her and refuses to dissipate. Every exhale suffocates her more.  _

_ She tries to stand up and move but the ice coats her so thickly that she can’t even twitch her leg. She can only shiver as the cold eats away at her. Can only tremble as her own breathing overtakes her. The black cloud accumulates until her white world goes fully black.  _

_ The blackness is worse than the blinding white.  _

_ She can still feel the sting as wind whips shards of ice on to her skin.  _

_ When the darkness clears, Azula finds that her chin and arms are host to a gathering of icicles. And the empty space at the bend of her knee is decorated with them too.  _

_ She sees the figures, there are so many of them.  _

_ They are tall and faceless. _

_ They are white like snow with hands like quartz. _

_ They are beautiful. _

_ And they are horrible.  _

_ Those crystalline hands touch her back. They are so frigid that they are white hot. They begin to lift her and her heart races. Her mind is screaming but her lips cannot. They cannot even part. Not even slightly. _

_ Their lifting becomes more forceful and the knots in her stomach swell.  _

_ They are going to shatter her. _

_ They are having trouble lifting her against the ice that binds her to the floor. They tug harder and harder still until she hears a horrific snap and then another. Cracks appear on the surface of her skin and still they tug and pull.  _

_ The force is too much and she crumbles.  _


	4. Aurora Light

Azula sits up, every fiber of her soul and body standing on end. The wind whistling against the side of the house unsettles some part of her. She can’t say exactly why; at first she thinks it is simply because it is a reminder of the unrelenting cold that had almost killed her. But she thinks that it is deeper than that. More primal. Complemented by the nightmare, the shrill howl and the slight shaking of the house leaves her jittery and on edge.

She doesn’t know where to go but she doesn’t want to remain on that sofa, fighting for sleep that won’t come, so she takes to wandering aimlessly about the house with only a small flame in her palms. She meanders into the living room and stands before the rack of weapons. Those will occupy her, at least for a short span of time. 

She brushes her fingers over the dull surface of the blades, runs them over the intricate tribal etchings. Her fire glints and bounces off of the metal. She traces her fingers to the end of the topmost sword. To the hilt. Wrapped around it is a dark leather that ends in long fringes. 

She follows the length of the fringe to wear it ends with several large wooden beads, teal and navy in color. 

The craftsmanship is sublime. 

“What are you doing?” 

Azula gives a start and nearly drops the sword. 

“Sorry.” Sokka whispers, holding his hands up. “Couldn’t sleep?” 

Azula shakes her head. 

“Is the bed not comfy?” He pauses. “No wait, I know! It’s too cold isn’t it?” 

“That’s not it.” Azula replies. Though it is rather chilly for her liking. 

“Then what is it?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” She replies. 

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.” 

“Nothing, nevermind. It’s foolish.” She cradles the sword back in place. 

“So it was a nightmare then?” Sokka asks. “Zuko always gets really defensive and secretive about nightmares.” 

“Zuko…” she tests the name, trying to coax any familiarity out of it. Still, the name remains as empty as her own. 

“What happened in the nightmare?” Sokka persists. 

She picks up another weapon and inspects it. This one is a spear with a stone head. 

“Alright, I’ll leave you alone.” 

“I died.” She puts the spear back in place. 

The wind gives another howl at the house. She stares down at her feet with her hands clasped behind her back. 

“I think I know how to make things better.” Sokka smiles. 

Azula stares expectantly. 

“It always comforts me.” 

Azula quirks a brow. 

“Follow me.” Sokka smiles. He tosses her a coat and a pair of mittens.

The firebender looks at the door. Reluctantly, she slips into the winter attire and lets Sokka lead her out into the snow. Instinctually, her stomach turns. In comparison to the last time she had stepped outside, it is more pleasant. It is quite peacefully so. Snow still falls but it is lighter. Kinder. A gentle little dusting that clings to her lashes and the fur on her hood. 

Her breaths come out in small puffs. She watches an artic wolf-fox cross the snow in the distance. Despite the tranquility, she wants to go back inside. Even as abundantly bundled as she is, she still shivers.

“Why are we out here?” 

**.oOo.**

Sokka’s heart sinks; she isn’t even giving him a chance. He should have known that the firebender would have no interest in the cold majesty of an arctic night. He marvels at twisting curtains of light, she hasn’t even noticed. In fact she seems only to stare at the ground, watching each and every step she takes or blankly at the snow gusting about in the tundra. Winds blow loose flakes into large banks, the wisps of wintery powder slither like snakes in the wind.

The sight is familiar and comforting as it is sinister and dangerous. He thinks that she can only ever know it as a sight to dread.

He considers asking her again, what she had dreamt of. 

He comes to find that he has no need. 

“I died in the cold.” She says.

Instinctually, as he would with his own sister, Sokka takes her hand. “You’re alive.” He laughs, “I can tell because you’re complaining.” 

“In my dream, I mean.” Azula replies. 

Sokka gives a resigned sigh, “is this your way of telling me that you want to go back inside?”

“It’s my way of telling you that you better have a good reason for bringing me back out here.” She folds her arms across her chest. 

“Look up.” Sokka points.

**.oOo.**

Azula tilts her head. A quartzy dusting of stars glimmer in a deep blue sky. The glistening snow below creates a frigid and elegant ambience. And then she sees what Sokka is referring to. They are luminous curtains of vivid teals and electric greens with an occasional burst of rosy pink. 

“I like to watch them. They never get old because they seem to look different every night.” Sokka says.

They shift and twirl in the air like pastel flames. Sometimes dipping low enough that Azula feels as though she can reach out and touch them. She holds a hand out, if only to humor herself, but only catches snow.

“They’re nice, right?” Sokka grins. 

Azula shrugs, “they’re alright, I suppose.” They’d be better under different circumstances. The more she stares out into the vast tundra, the more that the unease begins to seep in. She half expects to see them stalking over the snow, ready to fight to take her back. She takes an unconscious step towards Sokka. 

A particularly strong gust sends her into another round of vicious shivers. 

As awestriking as the celestial colors overhead are, the icy breath on her cheeks pulls her attention elsewhere. Feeling it on her skin makes her fingers tingle, even the one that she no longer has…

Especially the one that she no longer has.

The queasiness doubles. She can feel the cold seeping into her bones, turning them to ice. Abruptly, she turns and begins a brisk and somewhat clumsy walk back to the house. Sokka, well accustomed to trekking through deep snow, catches up absurdly quickly. 

“Sorry.” He mutters. “I thought that you’d like them.” 

Azula pauses to look at the lights once more. “I do.” She admits. “But I also like the nine fingers that I still have.”

She doesn’t mention how unsettled the landscape--and its horrific weather--makes her feel. 

How trapped.

How downright frightened. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka laughs. “That’s fair, I guess.” 

“You guess?” She whips around to face him. “How about this, I’ll amputate your finger and keep it for myself.” She carries on with her stubborn, awkward-gaited stride, leaving him to dwell on her empty threat. 

“It didn’t change you much.” 

Azula brings her strides to a halt once more. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re still you. Even if you don’t have your memories.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Sokka considers the question; it is almost like a reset in some way. She is more like her old self; less impulsive, more logically driven. Sharp-staring and rational. And yet this is her more dangerous temperament. It is the one that had allowed her to burn and singe he and his friends. That helped her overthrow Ba Sing Se. He considers that cold and calculated, piercing stare and then that later vicious, more wild gleam in her eyes as she lashed out at his sister and at her own brother. He decides that he does wish that her amnesia would have left her softer, more timid. “Let’s talk about this inside.”

Azula doesn’t protest this suggestion but she doesn’t drop the topic now that they are back in the warmth of his home. “You think that it’s a bad thing.” She says simply. “Why? Who am I?” 

“I told you, I’ll tell you all about yourself on the boat ride home.”

“Home as in the Fire Nation in general or home as in, to my home specifically.” 

“Your home.” He replies. “Your brother has been looking for you, believe it or not.” 

“I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t.” Azula shrugs and finds herself a seat closest to the fireplace. She ignites the wood within. 

Sokka cringes. “Yeah…” 

The way she stares at the fire gives him the impression that she has picked up on his wince. He could really use some more time under the lights. Maybe he should leave her to the comfort of the fire and return to his own happy place. 

“I shattered.” She speaks, leaving pause enough for Sokka to take in the crackle and pop of the fire. “In my nightmare my body froze and shattered.” 

Sokka isn’t sure if he is supposed to fill the gap with a reply.

“I don’t like it out there, Sokka. It’s too cold and the only memory I have of it is that it almost killed me and then took my finger to ensure that I’d never forget.” She gives another pause. “Do you know what it is like when your clearest memory...your only memory is  _ that _ .” 

Sokka swallows. “That’s why I was trying to show you something pretty. It isn’t all harsh, it can be beautiful and kind.” He wonders if and hopes that the same can be said for the woman in front of him. 

She peels off her mittens and stares at her palms. “I suppose that I appreciate the attempt. Even though it was a dreadful one.”

“Was it though?” He quirks a brow.

“Alright. Fine. Those lights were rather incredible.” Azula admits. He watches her stretch herself out on the sofa and bundle herself up. “Stay with me?” She asks.

“There’s only one sofa.” 

“There’s plenty of floor.” She points out and gestures to a sleeping bag that is haphazardly laying on the ground.

“I can’t sleep on the floor.” 

The firebender frowns before snatching her pillow and curling up on the sleeping bag. 

“You can sleep on the floor?”

“No.” Azula replies. “But I...I won’t be able to sleep anyways, so you might as well keep me company.” 

Sokka sighs. “You can keep the sofa.” Joking or not, he decides that he won’t give her a hard time about not wanting to sleep alone. “I said that you can…” but she is already asleep. He almost forgot that she is still running a fever. He lifts her back onto the sofa and curls up on the sleeping back, wondering how he always manages to get the short end of the stick. 

He thinks that he is too sympathetic for his own good. 

“Hey.” She mumbles. Apparently she isn’t a heavy sleeper. He almost feels bad for having woken her. Not that she won’t fall right back asleep. 

“Yeah?”

“You’re taking me home tomorrow, right?” 

“I’m taking you home as soon as you stop coughing and sniffling.” 

She nods and rolls over, turning her back on him. As soon as he is certain that she is asleep, he wanders back outside--with a promise that he’ll be back inside before she can realize he’d left at all. He only wanders a little ways from the house before turning his face to the sky. Teal and green weave in and out of each other. He is going to miss them. But it will be nice to see Zuko and Aang again. And if he is lucky, Toph too. 

He just hopes that they will handle Azula’s arrival well. 

He looks out into the tundra, the dark and unforgiving openness. She’d made her way out of such a dismal place, he hopes that he can keep her in the light. 

The auroras roll and shift. 


	5. Self-Afflicted

A bitter wind whips at her face bringing with it a bitingly cold sting. Azula has come to find that the only thing worse than the poles is the poles at sea. She curls her fingers around the rails and looks out at the rolling waves. Their captain carefully navigates the water, weaving between large blocks of ice. On the odd occasion they come to a block that they can’t avoid, and so the few firebenders on board melt it away. 

Having nothing better to do as well as no desire to float in the icy ocean, she takes to helping them clear some of the ice. 

She folds her arms over her chest, wondering just what the hell is taking Sokka so long. She lets a few more minutes pass before wandering below deck to seek the man out. As far as she is concerned, she has waited more than long enough to learn a thing or two about her past, especially with the way people look at her. 

It isn’t lost on her that they seem to slink back as she passes. That they exchange glances and hushed words and take special care to avoid meeting her gaze. 

Finally she succumbs to boredom enough to try to make conversation. She doesn’t quite know where to begin so she simply finds a spot next to girl and mutters, “it’s aggravatingly cold on deck.”

The girl seems to go tense and gives a nervous laugh, “yeah, cold.”

“I suppose that you’re used to it?” Azula asks.

“Just because I’m from the tribes doesn’t mean that I like the cold…” She pauses. “That’s like assuming all firebenders can’t swim.”

“We can’t.” Azula confirms. But the girl doesn’t laugh. Perhaps her delivery had been too deadpan. She is certain that she hasn't said anything particularly unsettling, but the girl seems absurdly uneasy. And so she retreats, finding herself rather isolated and without knowing why. 

Yes. It is definitely time to pry answers from Sokka. 

**.oOo.**

The waters roll and rock the boat, but they aren’t the reason for his nervous jitters. He sits in the corner of his quarters and waits for Katara to arrive. She will either be compassionate and sympathetic or completely off-put and angry. There is seldom an in between during the initial discussion.

“Hi, Sokka.” She greets with a cheerful smile. She holds out a steaming cup of tea. 

Sokka accepts it but isn’t quite ready for a drink. 

“What did you want to talk to me about.” 

“ I wanted to talk to you about the woman I saved…”

Katara nods, “what’s her name, anyways?” And then she seems to recall something. “Oh, that’s right, she doesn’t remember it. What have you been calling her?” 

Sokka takes a deep breath. “I lied, Katara. She does remember her name.  _ But… _ ” he pauses. “That’s the  _ only  _ thing she remembers.”

Katara crinkles her brows, “why would you lie about something so stupid?”

He supposes that it is better to rip the band-aid. “It isn’t stupid, trust me.” And yet he still finds himself stalling, even if it is only for a single sentence. Katara tilts her head and he knows that, he hasn’t even bought himself that much. “It’s Azula.  _ She’s _ Azula.”

Katara opens her mouth in a silent sputter. 

“I didn’t know that when I saved her and even if I did, we couldn’t have just let her die.” 

Katara sighs. “Of course we couldn’t have let her die. But we don’t need to keep her around either. We need to get her back to the institution.” 

Sokka reflexively cringes, before logic settles; she was only speaking of sending the princess back to the Fire Nation hospital. His nerves don’t subside, if anything his paranoia hightents. “What if that institution is linked to the one she escaped in the poles?” In which case, he notes, she would have had to have been taken back to the Fire Nation one somehow and then transferred to the location in the poles. Katara leaves him no time to reflect on that theory.

“What if it is?” She may as well have added a ‘so’ at the sentence’s front with that tone. 

“She ran away from it…” 

“Why are you assuming that they mistreated her and that she didn’t escape to go after Zuko again?” 

“She can’t remember a thing.” Sokka replies.

“We last saw her in the Forgetful Valley, Sokka. You don’t think that she might have done this to herself?” Katara asks. “She wasn’t exactly stable when we saw her last.”

“I don’t know. Something isn’t right. I don’t know what it is but I think that it’s more than than. She wasn’t all there,” he gestures at his head, “but she’s not dumb enough to go around pissing off spirits.” 

Katara quirks a brow. 

“Look, I just think that there’s more to it. She was in the Fire Nation and then I find her, almost dead, in a snowstorm.” 

“Here’s what I think happened.” Katara pauses. “I think that she wandered back into that jungle, angered a few spirits, wandered out of the jungle, and was found and re-committed.”

“Then how’d she end up in the poles, Katara?”

“She’s dangerous. TyLee couldn’t be there all the time to block her chi so they sent her to a facility that could...contain her. Like the coolers in the boiling rock.”

“We can’t just send her back there. Not until we know what happened.”

“Nothing happened, Sokka. Nothing that she didn’t do to herself.” Katara insists. 

“She has nightmares.” He counters. “I think that she’s afraid.” 

This gives Katara pause. A halt that he takes advantage of. “How can we punish her for things that she doesn’t remember doing?”

“She’s still dangerous.”

“I don’t think that she is.” Sokka says. “How can she remember that she wants to hurt us or overthrow Zuko if she doesn’t even remember us at all? Her fire is orange now, I think that she can only bend by instinct.” 

Katara hesitates again. “Her being able to bend without remembering any forms...that’s scary. That’s a sign that she  _ is  _ dangerous. We’re going to bring her home and then she’s going back to the institution.” 

“We’re at least going to talk to Zuko--you know, her brother--about this, right?”

“She tried to kill him and then me while I tried to save him; he’s going to say the same thing.” Katara replied. “But, yeah, of course we’re going to talk to him.” 

The unease in his stomach only intensifies. He truly hopes that he’ll have better luck convincing Zuko. The butterflies double twice over at the realization that he might have just made Katara angry. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner.” He calls to the empty doorway. He flops down onto the bed with a resigned groan. He wonders just why he cares so much, it isn’t as though she had treated him any better in the past. 

“There you are.” Azula remarks. 

Sokka bolts upright. “Spirits! Don’t do that.”

Azula gives a little laugh. “Priceless.” 

“That’s not funny.” He grumbles. 

“Well you’re pleasant company.” She frowns. 

“Says the one who can’t appreciate the southern water lights!” 

Azula shrugs and makes herself comfortable at the foot of his bed. “You said that you would tell me about my past.” She pauses. “Do it.”

“You were always this commanding.” Sokka shrugs. 

“So you have a sense of humor afterall.” 

“I am the funniest guy on team Avatar!” He declares. 

“Team avatar?”

Sokka sighs, “I’ll tell you about that later.” He tries to pick his brain for a pleasant memory. Anything that doesn’t paint her as someone evil. He rubs his head, having trouble doing so. Maybe he ought to just cave in and tell her that she’d been stark raving mad the last time that’d met. But is that really any better than telling her that she was out to conquer or destroy the world in the name of her father? 

He observes her drumming her fingers upon the mattress. 

He recalls her chasing them down, tracking them and keeping them up all night. He remembers how she’d taunted him about Suki, the way she used her as bait. He remembers Katara recounting how she didn’t think that she’d make it out of that final battle alive. 

And he begins to resent the woman sitting on his bed, twirling her bangs around her finger. Maybe he should just throw her back into the institution and let her solve things herself.

“I’m a bad person, aren’t I?”

Sokka flinches. “Why would you think that.”

She gestures around the ship, presumably to people that aren’t present. “Why wouldn’t I?” The question hangs for a moment. “No one will talk to me. You don’t want to tell me anything about me…” 

Briefly his mind wanders to how the crew would recognize her when Katara did not. Perhaps she was simply trying not to see the truth. Having let the silence drag for too long already he starts, “Azula…” 

Her deadpan expression unsettles him as she cuts in, “I’d rather know that I’m dreadful than know nothing at all.” 

**.oOo.**

Sokka’s expression softens. Whatever resentment that had built up inside of him--no doubt the same breed that is harbored by everyone else on the ship--seems to ebb away. His face softens. “You’re not a bad person.” 

“Don’t lie to me!” She snaps. He winces. 

“You don’t have to be a bad person…” 

“Don’t patronize me either.” She warns, her voice taking on a sinister sort of low. 

He lifts his hands, “I’m not trying to.” 

His expression, the fear and retreat. She is only confirming what she now knows to be true. “Alright. Fine. I’m sure that there are plenty of people around who will have no problem telling me exactly who I am.” It is probably better this way, she’d find more truth from someone who would disregard her feelings completely. 

He catches her hands, “your mom was banished and your brother wanted to find her.” Sokka starts. “We went on this whole journey and there was this thing that happened.” 

Azula rolls her eyes. “A thing?”

“We were attacked by some kind of spirit wolf that threw up spirit moth-wasps. It was about to ruin everything and then you made this big ball of lightning and all of the moth-wasps flew into it. The wolf and the rest of the swarm retreated.” He says. “You saved us.” 

Sokka’s grip on her wrist loosens and she finds herself sitting back down. 

“You told me that I smelled like a wet possum-pidgeon.” 

She succeeds in not laughing but can’t suppress a faintly humored smile. She supposes that, that does sound like her. “Why?”

“Because we were trying to sneak around and we needed disguises. I made a beard out of fur. I had too, it’s a classic! But you didn’t like it.” He declares. “On that same quest, we were attacked by...nature.”

“By nature?” 

“Long story. The point is, I was about to get strangled...or something...by a bunch of vines. You saved me from that too…and then you said that you only did it so that you’d have more peasants around to keep you safe.”

“If I help people, then why do they look at me the way they do.” 

Sokka bites his cheek. “You...uh...you went a little…” he holds his finger up to his head and twirls his finger. 

She stares at her palms, “oh.” 

“Yeeeah…” 

He isn’t making her feel any less awkward. 

But she had asked for...demanded answers. “That’s how I ended up in that institution, isn’t it?” At least she can piece together some of the how’s.

“That’s the thing that doesn’t make any sense.” Sokka replies, practically throwing his hands up. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while...you escaped…” he reconsiders his words. “You made a deal with your brother and he let you leave and then you ran away. You were still in the Fire Nation when that happened.”

“Exactly where did I run to?”

“Right into the Forgetful Valley.” 

Azula’s belly tickles unpleasantly. She rubs her hands over her face, “so I did this to myself?” She feels a disorientation to match that which she felt in the tundra. Had she taken her own memories? Had they, those people, taken her for her own protection? Perhaps she has simply filled the holes in her mind with visions as ominous as they are untrue.

“I. I don’t think so.” Sokka puts a sudden halt on her self-doubt. 

Azula cocks her head. “Why?” 

“Mostly because of your nightmares. But I guess it’s also because why would you run away if they didn’t hurt you?” 

Azula shrugs, “because I’m crazy.” 

She ought to start keeping a tally on how much she makes him flinch.

“You said that they did something to you.”

“I thought that they did…” now she is beginning to doubt. “Maybe I did something to me, Sokka.” What if they were just trying to save her from herself? She rubs her hands over her face again and lets them rest there. It could be that they were trying to save her from herself. That she is a cocktail of mental affliction; simply a mess of amnesia accompanied by paranoid delusions. 

A hand presses itself, comfortingly, between her shoulder blades. “You didn’t do this to yourself.” 

“I did.” She persists. “You said it yourself, I lost my mind. And then I lost it again...” 


	6. What You Are

_ She can only flex her fingers as the ice works its way into her bones. She is bound by tight leather straps, to what, she isn’t sure. It is too dark. But she is almost completely immobilie. Frosty, phantom fingers trail the length of her body, seeming to run over each and every chi point. Azula shudders but can do no more than that as the fingers continue to roam and trace the webbed path of her chi. _

_ She breaths somewhat heavily; even this is made difficult by the restrictiveness of her binds. The spectral fingers reach her head, all of them and at once. They seem to drill into her skull the pressure is achingly intense as they try to penetrate her mind. Each to the likeliness of jagged icicles.  _

_ She jerks against her restraints. It is a futile effort, she can’t even raise her back from whatever surface she is tied too. The pressure on her head continues to build. The first frigid finger slips into her brain. There is a sharp jab and then there is… _

Light. 

She wakes feeling just as breathless as she had been during her nightmare. She closes her eyes and clutches the blankets, the rocking of the ship brings are a strange sort of comfort. It is a constant. It is a sensation that reminds her that she is awake. 

She pulls herself out of bed and dresses herself before making her way to the ship’s deck. She spies Sokka looking out over the waves. He turns and catches her eye. With a soft smile, he beckons her over. “Good morning.”

She shrugs. She doesn’t particularly feel as though it is. 

“You didn’t sleep very well, did you?” 

“No, I didn’t.”

“Thinking about, what we talked about?”

Though that is a good guess she shakes her head. 

“Another nightmare then?” After an extended pause, he asks, “want to talk about it?”

“No.” She looks over the railing. Having put several days between their ship and the Water Tribe, the weather was becoming more bearable. She doesn’t have to dress herself in anything more than a light jacket. Still she craves days where the heat will be abundant and smoldering. “I want you to tell me more about me.” 

Sokka rolls his eyes. “Of course you do.” 

“You made me a promise and I will hold you to it.” She doesn’t think that this is any grounds for laughter and yet Sokka snickers. She gives a slight frown. 

“Okay, let me think…”

“On that first morning.” She begins, “you said that I reminded you of your friend’s crazy sister. You can start there.” 

Sokka rubs the back of his head. “Do you remember every word I’ve said to you since you woke up?”

“I don’t have anything else to fill the space with.” Azula replies. “So give me something.” 

Sokka sighs, “alright.” He motions for her to follow him, she supposes that privacy wouldn’t be a bad thing. But he doesn’t lead her to the cabins, instead they stand in a miniature cafeteria. “The reason that you remind me of my friend’s sister is because…”

“I can put two and two together.” She cuts him off. 

“Right. Well, that’s not the important part. Your brother’s name is Zuko and he’s the Fire Lord.” 

The title has as little meaning to her as the name attached to it, but she feels that it is safe to assume that it is an important one. 

“You’re royalty.” He elaborates. 

“Royalty…” Of course.

“Oh come on!” He throws his hands up. “It can’t be that hard to believe. You didn’t even know and you were already acting the part.” 

Azula shrugs. “I suppose that, that is good to know before entering  _ my  _ nation.” She tests the sound of it.

And she likes the sound of it. 

The thought that she has subjects of her own. The thought that she had been someone before she became no one. 

“Why did I run?” She asks. “Into the Forgetful Valley.”

Sokka seems gnaws on his cheek. “Because you didn’t want to go back to the institution. The first one you were in.” 

“And why was I institutionalized in the first place. I want specifics.”

“You’re relentless.” He groaned. 

“You have already told me that I’d lost my mind. I can handle the truth, Sokka.” She folds her arms over her chest. “So give me the whole story.” 

“Ask nicely.” He gives a lopsided smile. 

Sleep deprived and completely on edge as it were, she is in no mood for jesting and jokes this morning. “I’m not going to beg for what’s mine.” Her voice drops considerably. She is sick to death of the games and the tiptoeing. Of everyone knowing more of her than she. “Tell me what you know about me.”

**.oOo.**

Sokka’s smile fades. For the first time since he’d pulled her out of the tundra he wonders if he is making a mistake. A familiar sense of unease takes root in his mind. Blue fire or none, with that cutting golden gaze, she remains as imposing as ever. “I like to think that I’m a patient person.” She continues. “But that is wearing thin, Sokka.” 

She emits a very familiar sense of superiority as she looms...well, not exactly over him--she is still significantly smaller but she has a presence to make up for that. 

“Look, I just think that there are some things that we should wait to talk about.” 

Her frown only seems to deepen. 

“I mean that I haven’t figured out how to say them yet.”

“How about you make it simple.” She hisses. “And simply tell it exactly how it is.”

He hates the way her eyes narrow, it instills a fear that he hasn’t felt since Katara had initially taken her down. Since boarding the ship, the princess has been nothing but temperamental and unkind. He supposes that there had been some softer moments, but mostly her temper has been slowly simmering as hot as her fire. 

He decides that this time around he won’t let her speak down to him. 

“I saved you from that tundra. I risked my life for you and you want to be difficult.” 

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

Sokka can practically feel his eye twitch. “I think that the call for help was implied!”

Azula shrugs.

Her apparent indifference is almost worse than her blunter arguments. Coupled, she leaves him feeling terribly under appreciated. And after all the trouble he has gone through to help her…

“You want the truth about you, fine!” He snaps. “You are evil!”

**.oOo.**

Azula flinches.

“Everyone looks at you the way they do because you tried to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground. Well, your dad did that but it was your idea. Before that you invaded Ba Sing Se and overthrew the Earth King.”

She forces her face to remain blank and uncaring though the revelation is quiet jarring. She hasn’t put much thought into theorizing what her history could have been–seeing no point in doing so–but she didn’t think that she would have considered a history rooted in destructive tendencies. Her throats burns with unease.

“So that’s it then? You didn’t want me to know that I’m powerful.” She states dryly.

“I was hoping that you’d be…” what? What did he think she’d be? She doesn’t think he knows because he simply pushes forward, “but I guess evil is just part of your personality. Even without your memories you’re…you’re…” he sputters, “you’re the most powerful jerkbender out there!”

Evil.

Rooted in her personality…

She likes to think that, that isn’t true. She hadn’t felt any inclinations towards it. None at all. She comes to decide that had he not told her she had been a vicious force, she wouldn’t have guessed.

She supposes that she might not have the friendliest mannerisms and demeanor, but she has trouble seeing herself calling for mass death by fire. “I’m not evil.” She I insists plainly.

**.oOo.**

Though she keeps the edge off of it he can see the hurt and perhaps distress in her eyes.

He realizes that he hasn’t forgiven her not for capturing Suki, not for anything. He may have been able to push it aside to save her life but it is still very much there. A hint of resentment that grows with every cold and barbed word that falls from her lips. He blurts it out before he can stop himself, “You are. You killed someone.”

He can elaborate. He can tell her that Aang rose back up. But his temper gets the best of him, he’d let her believe that he is still dead.

“What?”

“You’re a killer.”

Her eyes flicker with with a cocktail of emotions before going wholly expressionless once more. He can’t hear her, but he can read her lips. “A murderer.” She turns her back on him and wanders out of the cafeteria.

Too late he realizes that he may have just pushed her right back into the dark.


	7. The Same Threat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might be taking a little hiatus with this one so I can focus on finishing my two other fics. I'm getting a bit busy again so managing three fics is no longer possible.

Sick.

She feels sick.

And maybe that is a good thing.

Yes, it’s probably better that she feels disgusted with herself. She likes to think that, that is sign enough that she isn’t a killer to the bone.

Even still…

She hugs her legs to her chest.

Azula decides that she no longer wants her memories back. She doesn’t want to know what it is like to watch the light leave someone’s eyes or to watch a body drop.

There comes a knock. She should answer it but she wants to be alone. She fixes her eyes on the ceiling. She rubs her hands over her face. Another rapping. She rolls over.

She waits for the footsteps to retreat before making any movement at all. And then another hour after that to decide that it might be good to get some fresh air–even if that air is tinged with an overpowering salty taste. It takes her another half an hour after to work up the energy to make her way to the deck.

There are too many people there. She feels boundlessly more comforted in isolation.

She has no one to blame but herself. She wanted the truth; she insisted that she could handle it…

“Azula.”

She turns around. It is Katara. She nods her acknowledgement.

“You look tired.” The girl comments.

Azula shrugs.

“You didn’t come to breakfast.”

“I didn’t feel the need.”

“It’s almost lunchtime.”

“Yeah.” Azula makes a half hearted mental note of it. She turns her focus back to the approaching land mass. It looks lush and green; inviting. A volcano juts from its surface; a host to a large sprawling city from the looks of it.

It can’t arrive soon enough.

For a change, the air is balmy and warm. The friendlier weather does its part to keep her from losing it entirely. She watches a few birds circle overhead, making their own way to the Fire Nation. They are too far for her to tell exactly what kind of birds they are. 

As Azula watches the water as it undulates beneath the boat, she can’t keep her mind from wandering to who she might have killed. Was it a boy or a girl? Her age? Older? Agni forbid this person was younger. She curls her fingers more tightly around the boat’s rails. 

“Are you okay?” Katara asks. 

What is she supposed to say? That she has just found out that she has killed someone, that she is likely to be locked away as soon as she sets foot on mainland soil. That she might just deserve it. That there is a reason she had been institutionalized. “I’m fine.” 

“Somehow we’re going to get your memories back, if that’s what’s bothering you.” 

Fingers of fear tickle at her stomach. “Thanks…” She trails off casting her eyes downward. 

**.oOo.**

“She’s being awfully quiet.” Katara remarks of the princess. 

“She’s always quiet.” Sokka shrugs. 

“More than usual.”

He shrugs again. So what if he hurt her, after all of her manipulations and schemes, she is due for a little hurt. He’ll work with her after she decides that she wants to apologize or at least show a little gratitude.

“Maybe you should talk to her.” Katara says.

“Why don’t you?” He asks. 

“I tried.” Katara answers. “She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She’ll probably talk to you.”

“Doubt it.” He grumbles. 

Katara’s eyes briefly widen with realization. A somewhat smug smile decorating her face, “she’s mad at you, isn’t she?” 

“Why are you smiling, it’s not funny!” He already knows exactly what answer he is going to receive. 

“Because I knew that this was a bad idea.” And there it is. Not that he isn’t beginning to agree with her. He still isn’t sure why he thought that Azula would be any less difficult and hard to get along with. 

“I’ll figure it out.” He frowns.

“Well we’re gonna be in the Fire Nation soon, so you might want to get her sorted out quickly.”

**.oOo.**

She is in equal parts glad to be off of that boat and dreading what dry land has to offer. She can still feel the ground rocking and lulling beneath her feet, as though she is still out at sea. It was only a short journey, but she has decided that she had already been on the waters for too long. 

“Katara!” Greets a boy. A strange boy, bald and with an arrow tattooed upon his head. She realizes that they decorate his hands too. “It’s nice to see you again.” He throws his arms around the waterbender. 

She scans the faces. There is a scarred man, a tiny blind girl, a perky woman with a long braid, and a woman who seems to radiate gloom. 

The scarred man steps forward, “hi, Sokka, how have you been?” 

She notes the gold piece adorning his hair and assumes that this man is her brother. But he doesn’t seem to pay her any mind. 

“It’s nice to have everyone together again!” Exclaims the cheerful girl. 

“Yeah, a real joy.” Says the other. 

Azula stands silently with her hands behind her back for the duration of their reunion, feeling out of place at best and completely unwelcomed worst. She does nothing to draw attention to herself, she’d rather not have it anyhow. 

No sooner does she get comfortable in her solitude does the scarred man...her brother?...acknowledge her. “Azula?”

A cluster of eyes turn on her. She slips her hands into her pockets and tries to hold her head high under the weight of the stares. Rather unfriendly stares. 

“You should have stayed wherever you were.” The blind girl cracks her knuckles. Azula quirks a brow in the girl’s direction, a gesture that is naturally lost on the girl. 

“It wasn’t my idea to come back.” 

“Where were you, anyways.” The scarred man asks.

“I don’t remember.” Azula mumbles. 

**.oOo.**

He almost feels bad for leaving her to face all of them alone. If their flurry of questions rattle her, she gives no indication. She turns her head and for the briefest moment, they meet eyes. He looks for any sign of a silent plea for him to step in, but her expression is as impassive and untelling as ever so he leaves her to fend for herself.

She wouldn’t off him any thanks for stepping in anyhow.

“Why don’t we just put her back in the asylum where she belongs.” Mai suggests. “That’ll resolve things quickly.”

He expects her to retaliate. To insist that they can’t punish her for something she doesn’t remember doing. To try to talk her way out of it. 

She makes no protest. 

She says nothing at all. 

To his surprise, it is Katara who speaks up. “She lost her memories.” 

Zuko offers his sister a quizzical look. “Why didn’t you mention that?” 

“Because it doesn’t matter, does it?” She accents her question with a shrug. “You’ll think what you will of me, no matter what I say.”

“You lost your…”

“That doesn’t mean I’ve changed any.” She gives Sokka a pointed glare. “If I was a threat before, then I’m a threat now.”


	8. Flee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter, y'all!  
> I resurrected this fic like Jesus!

Sokka is still angry and no one else has warmed up to her sudden reappearance. Mai seems particularly unentertained by her presence. Azula wishes that she knew why. Maybe Mai had been close to the person she killed. Any which way, Azula is alone. 

Confined to her room, she decides that it is probably better if she isn’t left isolated. She isn’t sure what is more potent, her sense of gloom or the splotches of darkness expanding in her mind. She thinks briefly of giving into the evil; she is already a killer there isn’t any going back from that. 

She can very well play the part of an innocent fool as she finds a way to complete her former goals that Sokka had alluded to. 

She wanders down halls that she knows she should be familiar with, yet they are foregin all the same and some how serve to instill a deeper sense of loneliness within her. She takes several turns before ultimately deciding that she should have come across the main stairwell by now.

She supposes that getting lost in her own home--if she can still call it that--will give her something else to think about. 

Something that doesn’t involve cursing Sokka’s name for being an ass and cursing her own name for having such a morally bankrupt past. 

Azula takes another turn, this time she is almost certain that it is the right one. She finds the door at the end of the hallway and pries it open only to be met by several states. A serving girl puts a halt to her scrubbing of a dish.

“Seriously?” She hisses to herself. She curses to herself; she has so much room in her mind and yet she has managed to forget the way from her room to the dining hall. 

She rakes her fingers through her hairline. 

It serves her right for having been so distracted on the journey to her room.

“Do you need help, princess?” One of the chefs offers. 

“I’m fine.” Azula mutters before slipping from the room. She’s just perfect. She makes her way back down the hall, pace quickened with irritation. Briefly, she wonders how she has dealt with living here. It doesn’t take much thought to decide that it is completely because, at one point, she had known the palace like the back of her hand. 

Her mind wanders again and she wonders how many times a significantly younger her had wandered around the palace directionless and crying.

Somehow she can’t even imagine her child self to be much of a cryer. 

Azula rounds another corner. The adjoining hallway looks vaguely familiar, she thinks that she has seen that suit of armor before. But then again, this hallway bears a likeness to every other hallway she has been down thus far. 

At this rate she will miss breakfast and find herself cranky twice over.

  
  


**.oOo.**

“What should we do with her?” 

Sokka thinks that Zuko is asking the wrong question. He thinks that is more of a, “how should we handle her?” He supposes that it doesn’t matter which question is asked, because he doesn’t know the answer to either. 

How should they handle someone like Azula? Someone dangerous but with only a basic outline as to why she is being punished. 

“I’ve already said my piece.” Mai shrugs.

Something in Sokka recoils at the thought of sending her back into the asylum. “But she’s stable.” He finds himself saying. She was before he boldly proclaimed that she is a killer. Once more, prickles of regret stir within him. 

“Prison works too.” Mai replies dryly. 

“I can…” He can what? Talk to her? She has made it clear that she doesn’t want conversation and he doesn’t plan on starting one until he gets his apology. 

Zuko looks at him expectantly. “I don’t know. Never mind. I just don’t think that it's a good idea to lock her up again.”

From across the table Aang nods in agreement. “Maybe if we treat her well and help her get her memories back…”

“She’ll do what she always does, use us and take advantage of us.” Mai cuts in. 

Zuko presses his mouth into a hard line. “Maybe we should send her back to the institution until we can decide what to do with her.” 

Sokka catches a blur of movement and his stomach plummets. 

  
  


**.oOo.**

Azula feels hollow as she hastily gathers an armful of clothes. She isn’t sure where she will go and she hasn’t the time to think of a place. She hasn’t a mental map of the Fire Nation to work with either. But wherever she goes, surely it is better than where she had been. 

Unidentified fears and terrors unfurl themselves in her mind. They come in clips and snippets that she is hard pressed to make sense of. 

She looks at her wrists and sees them shackled. 

Her head throbs.

The room seems to flit between the here and a place much darker. Darker and colder and alive with flailing vines tipped with fluorescent purple. 

Her head throbs harder. 

They insist that it will be okay, that she will be just fine. 

She grips her head and tries to stop the walls from spinning. 

She takes pause to slump down against the wall and try to orient herself. There is a tingling in her hands and feet, she feels dizzy. For a fleeting moment she thinks that they are right, that they ought to put her back in an institution. 

Azula takes several deep breaths and forces herself to her feet. She is certain that she doesn’t have much time. She grabs a simple sack and tosses her clothes into it. She will raid the kitchen on her way out. 

If she can survive the merciless winds of the tundra then she can hold her own in the scrawling, bustling capital. 

She will lose herself in its tangle of streets and alleys. 

If she can’t even find herself, then surely they never will. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka throws the door to her room open without so much as a knock. It matters no for there is no privacy to invade in the vacant room. 

His stomach lurches. 

He has forgotten how fast she acts and moves. 

He can’t say for sure why he feels such unease, he doesn’t believe that she is a danger to anyone in Capital City--anyone save for Zuko.

But that doesn’t mean that she is harmless. 

No, he realizes, she is doing what she has been doing so well lately; compromising her own wellbeing. And this time he is certain that she is certain that she is saving herself. To some degree, he supposes that she is. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he still toys with the idea that the asylums are connected. That, perhaps, Azula is only one fragment--albeit a major piece--of something much grander. Something more deeply evil than whatever Zuko fears lies in his sister. 

He doesn’t know enough. 

He doesn’t yet know much at all. 

He does know that he needs to find Azula.

He knows that he needs to do it before she can bring herself too much harm. 

More pressingly, he needs to find her before  _ they  _ can. 


	9. In Precise Detail

The night is relatively cold for a Fire Nation one. Mostly, the streets are vacant, he can’t imagine that she will be too hard to find. He forgets how elusive and sneaky she is. And he can’t come up with one possible location for her. It would be entirely useless to return to the palace and ask Zuko where she usually runs to when she needs an escape when she doesn’t even know where that place is. 

He runs his hand through his hair. Angry as he is with the woman, he finds it hard to picture her alone and mostly aimless. He gives a frustrated groan; he had gone through so much trouble to rescue and care for her only to cast it all away over one stupid, heated argument. 

Spirits, he doesn’t even think that the argument was that important. 

The more he dwells on it the more he understands. Of course she was agitated he had left her in the dark after promising her the truth. Just because he couldn’t stomach recanting the darkness of her past, doesn’t mean that she couldn’t. 

He weaves in and out of crowds, trying to spot a familiar face within it. It doesn’t help that she is so small. It is absurdly easy for her to burry herself among many people and wander further away without issue. 

“Sokka!” Katara is softly panting by the time she reaches him. “What are you…”

“She’s gone, Katara.” He replies. “She overheard us talking and she ran.” 

Katara’s lips press into a thin line. 

“She doesn’t want to go back to the institution.” 

“No kidding…” Katara mutters. 

**.oOo.**

Having successfully gotten herself completely disoriented and unquestionably lost, Azula finds a large maple tree and nestles herself against it. As far as shelter goes, at the very least, the tree will block the bite of the wind. 

She wraps her arms around herself and tries to remind herself that this is bearable. That she has survived much colder. She peers at her disfigured hand and clenches her teeth. If she can handle that, then a chilly night Fire Nation shouldn’t hassle her at all.

Whatever discomforts the streets of her nation will provide, it surely beats returning to whatever institution that held her captive.

She pulls out a bundle of clothes, makes herself a rudimentary pillow, and tries to make herself comfortable. 

In way of food, she doesn’t have much, but if things go as planned it should last her until she can secure herself some sort of job. She supposes that her memory loss holds a small mercy in that regard. Without the hindrance of knowing what it is to be pampered, she has nothing to miss. She supposes that she doesn’t have any pride or dignity to worry about either, having slipped far enough to be shipped away to an asylum. 

So long as she doesn’t think too much she will be fine, she promises herself this. 

Yet she can’t help but feel a sense of unease. 

She draws her legs up to her chest and tries to keep the butterflies tingling in her stomach at bay. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka paces about his room, running through the ups and downs of telling Zuko that his sister has run away again. He could certainly use a team of royal guards to help him comb through and search the capital. But it won’t do Azula’s reputation much good to do so; they trust her so little as it is. 

He rubs his hands over his face. 

He has made his own mess and he isn’t sure that he can fix it. 

Not on his own.

He bites his cheek and decides that he will give her and himself three days. If she doesn’t show up then, he will come out with his secret. 

He doesn’t have to start dodging questions until the second day. He sits himself down for breakfast and begins picking away at it, though, for once, he isn’t all too hungry. The longer she is away, the harder she will be to find. One day is more than enough time to chop her hair off and acquire boat passes to the Earth Kingdom.

It’s more than enough time for her to have been mugged or stolen away. Or for her to have maimed someone else who attempted to try either. 

Granted he hasn’t heard of any disturbances in the capital. No bodies nor acts of violence. 

“Maybe I should go talk to her.” Zuko muses, it takes Sokka a bit too long to realize that he is referring to Azula. 

“Maybe you should just leave her alone.” Sokka comments quickly after putting two and two together.

Zuko quirks a brow. “And why is that?”

Sokka glups and gives a shrug as impassive as he can. “She’s still pretty mad.”

“Have  _ you  _ talked to her?”

“Well...no...but…”

“Then maybe someone should. Then we can decide once and for all if we should have her locked up again.”

“How about I do it?” Sokka asks. “She’s not as mad at me as she is you.” 

“Fine.” Zuko agrees. “But you tell me exactly what she says to you.”

“Yeah. Sure, I can do that.” He pushes his chair in and wanders into Azula’s room. He can make it seem as though he is having a conversation with her while searching to see if she’d left any clue as to where she might have gone. 

He flops onto her bed and scans the nightstand first. 

**.oOo.**

Azula nibbles on a slice of bread. So far she hasn’t had much luck with finding a job other than two small tasks. For a few silver and copper pieces she had helped an elderly woman organize and beautify her garden and assisted a family with rearranging the furniture in their living room. She keeps the coins hidden in her boots, deciding that she won’t waste it on food yet. She’d rather secure herself a trip to the Earth Kingdom. If she can make it there, she can evade captivity. 

She finishes her slice of bread, gathers her scant belongings, and makes her way into town. Perhaps today will be her day. 

Something in her stomach flutters. She is already growing used to sleeping on the ground and the dirt and soot gathering on her cheeks. She is already used to having grime on her clothes and being on the receiving end of cross and judgemental stares.

It is fine so long as she won’t be whisked away and wiped clean again. 

So long as her hands are unbound. 

Azula makes her way to a pond and strips. Perhaps if she can scrub away the dirt smears that taint her face, she’ll have an easier time finding work. That is if the smell of fish and dirty pond water doesn’t drive them away.

_ The smell of fish… _

Her mood perks up some. Perhaps if she smells of the sea, she will be an attractive candidate to assist on fishing or sailing trips. Her stomach lulls some, as she recalls her aversion to rolling waves. 

She supposes that she will just have to get over it.

**.oOo.**

Two days turn into three and then three into four. 

Zuko’s men fan out all over the capital and some into the surrounding cities. Sokka feels nothing but sick to his stomach. Somehow he feels like he is betraying her all over again. He shakes his head, trying to tell himself that they aren’t friends. That she hates him and he returns the favor. He’d saved her due to a moral obligation and that is it. 

It is now his duty to save everyone from her. 

It is something that he should have done four days prior, instead of pretending like he could bring her home and make her see the light.

The spirits know that he has already gotten an earful for being so secretive. And he deserved it.

Still he finds himself saying, “you’re not going to transfer her back there, are you?” 

“She ran away, Sokka.” Zuko replies. “I think that that’s more than enough proof that she needs to go back.”

“Of course she ran, they did something to her…”

“Katara told me a bit about that. It sounds to me like she did that to herself.” Zuko pauses. “Which is another great reason why she needs to go back. If she doesn’t hurt someone else, she’s going to get herself killed.”

“I don’t think that she will, Zuko. I think that...I just have a feeling that we shouldn’t hand her back to them.” 

“Well we can’t keep her here. I can’t keep her under control.” Zuko counters. “And Mai certainly doesn’t want her around.” He pauses. “I’m not going to take risks because you have a bad feeling.” 

_ I don’t know Aang, why don’t you ask Sokka’s instincts. _ It had been so long ago that Katara and Aang had made those jabs, yet they hit him full force now have him nearly hanging his head in defeat. 

But he had been right then, hadn’t he…

“I can…”

“What? If I can’t get her to listen then you sure can’t.”

“Zuko, just let me talk to her for real when she gets back.” 

“You said it yourself, she’s angry with you.” 

Sokka pauses. “I don’t think that she’s angry. I think that she’s hurt. She seems to get the two tangled up.”

**.oOo.**

Azula throws herself into the alley and rushes to the other side. Her lungs burn and ache with the effort. They leave her no time to truly catch her breath and so she pants very heavily when she emerges. 

One moment. 

She takes one moment of pause; hunched over with her hands on her knees, breathing rapidly and forcefully. 

She hears several footsteps and bolts. She doesn’t think that she can run forever. She finds herself frustrated, nearly to tears. She had almost made it. She had successfully secured herself a job as a tradesman of fish. They had a course bound for the Earth Kingdom. She would have had freedom. Instead…

She rounds the corner and narly slams into one of the imperial firebenders. She comes to an abrupt halt and backtracks. A second guard has already filled that space. She is completely and helplessly surrounded.

She swallows and ducks down into a spinning kick. A circle of flames gives her an opening. An opening that she is too drained to act further upon. She tries anyhow, using a final burst of energy to push forward. A tense cramp in her leg sends her crashing to the pavement. She barely throws her arms up in time to keep her head from taking the brunt of the blow. 

She knows that her knees are going to be terribly bruised and swollen. Her arms are certainly scrapped and bloodied, a burning, stinging sensation lets her know that much. She squeezes her eyes shut and suppresses a frustrated cry. Her rugged panting doesn’t abate. 

When they pick her off of the ground her stomach tingles with rage, hopelessness, and defeat.

They are going to send her back. 

She can practically feel the slimy wet of spirit vines against her skin. 

Feel the leather straps digging into her skin. 

Feel the bite of the cold as it works into her being. 

Her head aches and her body trembles.

**.oOo.**

Sokka hadn’t expected her to be in good shape upon arrival. But he hadn’t expected her to be shaking and half-sobbing, covered head to toe in dirt and small cuts and scrapes. The imperial firebenders hadn’t been gentle. 

They certainly haven’t any compassion.

He notices that even Zuko and Mai have gone tense as they practically drop her before Zuko. “What should we do with her?”

“Take her to the infirmary for now.” Zuko instructs. 

They lift her once more. 

Her hair, unbound and tangled, clings to her sweaty forehead. Sokka feels a pang of guilt. He should have searched longer before calling them. 

She lifts her head, just enough to fix him with an absolutely simmering glare. In it he sees nothing but resentment. “Just remember, I have a lot of space in my head.” She practically growls. “I’ll remember this, Sokka. I’ll remember it in precise detail…”


	10. Not From You

He doesn’t doubt, not even for a moment, that she will remember. That she will have a perfect rendition, in her mind, of the exact moment that he completely torched an opportunity. That is why he lingers outside of the infirmary instead of just stepping inside. He wanders away from it only to wander back and then repeat. 

Repeat several times, in fact. 

He stands before the door again and exhales a long sigh. 

He makes off to move again, but makes it only halfway into the stride. 

“I know that you’re out there, Sokka.” Snaps the woman inside. “Either quiet down or find a different hallway to pace in.” 

He cringes. 

Having been noticed already, he might as well enter. Though doing so leaves him feeling rather nauseous. “How did you know it was me?” He opens with a nervously lopsided smile. 

“You have the grace of an elephant-rhino.” 

He rubs the back of his head. “Yes, well…”

“I told you to find a new hallway to pace in, not find your way into my room.”

“Your room is upstairs, this is the…”

She gives a dismissive wave. “It is my room for the time being, thanks to you.”

“Me!? You were the one who ran…”

She cuts him off again. “And you couldn’t just let me be.” She pauses. “You could have at least waited for a body to turn up. Though I suppose that you were trying to be preemptive.” 

Sokka flinches. “That’s...no. I didn’t want you just wandering…”

“I wasn’t ‘just wandering’. I had a job secured. I had freedom. I could have been well on my way to the Earth Kingdom. And you wouldn’t have had to worry about what I’d do to you.” 

He rubs his hands over his face. “I still don’t have to worry about what you’ll do to me.” 

“Not yet.” She replies with a flippant hand gesture. “Soon though. When the bandages come off and…”

“I don’t think that you want to hurt me.”

“Then what do I want, Sokka? You already have my memories and know more about me, so why don’t you tell me what I want to do?”

He takes his chances with sitting himself at the foot of her bed. “I know that you still want to hear about your past. And I know that you have a lot of time to hear the whole thing.”

**.oOo.**

Azula swallows, torn between a nagging desire to retrieve her lost memories and the bliss of semi-ignorance. “Why, now?” She asks. “You want me to feel bad over it, don’t you.”

“That’s not…”

But she isn’t done speaking. “That’s fine, I want to know.” Her spite will be the demise of her. Truly it is the last thing she wants to know of. “I want to know exactly who I killed and how. And,  _ please _ , if you will, tell me how their loved ones reacted.” Though she has a fairly good idea as to how they took this person’s death.

Once again, Sokka’s face contorts into a grimace. “You killed my friend, Avatar Aang.” 

She furrows her brows. Her stomach flutters but with what? Hope, dread, anger, pure confusion? “Isn’t the arrowed boy named Aang?” 

Sokka nods. “The scar on his stomach. That was your fault.” 

“Sokka, either I’ve killed him or he’s alive. Pick one.” 

“He was dead but my sister healed him like she healed you. Sort of.” Sokka replies. “She had this special water from a Spirit Oasis…”

“You didn’t think that that was an important detail?” 

“You can’t judge me!” He declares defensively. “Every other thing you ever said was a half-truth or an omission of detail!” 

Whatever has been causing the rolling in her belly has tears ready to spill over. “You let me think that I was a murderer…” Her voice is much quieter than she had hoped. Quieter and somewhat hitched. 

His bold and victorious smile vanishes and he is back to wincing. She finds that she is rather vexed by the expression and rolls onto her side so that she doesn’t have to look at it any longer, never mind that her bruised ribcage protests. 

**.oOo.**

“When you put it like that…” Why does she have to have such a careful way with words. He was already feeling like an ass. But she isn’t innocent, she isn’t! “You’re right, I was mad, okay?”

“No.”

“No, what?” 

“It isn’t okay.”

“Well zapping Aang wasn’t okay either! And neither was holding my girlfriend…” He flinches “...ex girlfriend hostage!” 

“I can’t imagine why she left you, you’re a real charmer.” 

Sokka’s eye twitches, his fist tightens and loosens once more. She is making this so difficult. “I came here to apologize to you! Why do you have to make that hard too.” 

She seems to bunch herself up protectively. “I don’t want an apology. I want the truth. All of it.” She pauses. “But I don’t want it from you.” 


	11. The Weight Of A Tale

It’s maddening. 

Completely maddening. 

She is beginning to unravel. 

She can’t imagine that it will be long before she has a fairly accurate picture of how she’d ended up in the institution in the first place. 

Her soul yearns and aches for her memories. For her mind to have completion. She  _ needs  _ her memories back. But she needs them from a reliable source and she won’t find one here in the palace. 

No, she has to find them for herself. 

Perhaps she should let herself go back to the institution. Armed with awareness and lucidity, she can investigate the place. Pick it apart until she has the answers she needs. Mayhaps running had been the exact wrong approach and the loathsome tribe boy has done her a favor. 

He gapes at her like the fish he smells of. 

“Please don’t say that…” He requests softly. 

Azula swallows. She feels as though she is being vindictively manipulative but at the same time, her distrust is as genuine and raw as any other emotion ravaging her mind. 

“Please don’t.”

Part of her wishes to take it back but she’d rather be devoid of memories than brimming with false ones. “I have to.” She decides. 

**.oOo.**

“I didn’t lie.” He insists. “And I won’t.” He can’t keep the desperation from bleeding through his words. He feels as though he is trying to grasp water with her. Desperately thrashing to hold onto something that can’t be held.

The worst of it is that he thinks that he had her. That he could have reached her, had he not let his frustration get the better of him.

“How do I know that?” 

“You can take a leap of fate.”

“I only take calculated risks. And lately those haven’t even paid.” Azula shrugs. “I won’t test my luck any further.” 

Feeling deflated and defeated he peels himself off of the bed. He makes his way to the door and stops in the frame. “I was frustrated. I thought that I was protecting you by not telling you…”

“I didn’t ask for protection! I asked for answers!” She snaps. “I don’t need protection. Just because you had so rescue me once, doesn't mean that I’m helpless.” 

Sokka flinches, she sounds like Suki. Too much like Suki. He runs his fingers through his hairline. “I know. I just...I wanted to help. No one really seems to want my help though, everyone seems to like to fight all by themselves…” He doesn’t know if he is talking about she or Suki. “You don’t have to. I guess that it’s kind of dark in there.” He motions to her head. “But it doesn’t have to be dark  _ and _ lonely.”

**.oOo.**

Azula gnaws on her cheek.

“I know that I should have told you that he didn’t stay dead. I’m just so used to you not caring.”

“I’m sure that I had feelings before now.” She mumbles. 

He seems to recoil. “That’s...that’s not what I meant.” He stumbles. “Look I’m not really good at this, I’m just going to…” he jabs a thumb backwards to the open door. 

She sighs and supposes that she should give him an inch. She doesn’t want to completely abolish the possibility of having a friend, at least one. “I still have them.”

His expression seems to soften and he edges closer to the bed. Hovering there, unsure of whether or not he should reassume his position. She will let him figure that out for himself. 

“I know. I guess that you wouldn’t be so mad right now if you didn’t trust me in the first place, right?” 

“Yes and that trust was a mistake.” 

“No, it wasn’t!” He insists. 

“Prove it.” 

“Will you let me tell you about your past?” 

She considers for a moment. “Fine.” He can tell her whatever he pleases, there’s nothing to say that she has to believe him. 

And by the end of his recount, she wishes that she didn’t. 

But it fits her personality. 

“You’re not going to say anything?”

There are so many things to be said that she can’t seem to grasp onto any one thing. Eventually as various emotions and thoughts flicker through her head, one begins to stand out amid them. One nagging and persistent thought. “You should have let me die in that tundra.”

It would have been so much easier. 

“Wh-what!?” He sputters. “Why would you say that?” 

She only stares at him with a mixture of displeasure and despair. “I feel like your story...my past speaks for itself.”

She feels his hand on her back. It reminds her of the night in the poles when he’d made her stare at the auroras. Of something that could have been if she hadn’t been so pushy and agitated. It compels her to snap, “don’t touch me!” 

He abruptly pulls his hand away and seems to edge back. 

The only memories she has are ones that involve him. And they are all pleasant, all of the ones from when they were still at the tribes. Perhaps they shouldn’t have left. Even in the cold, it had been so warm and she is pushing him away.

“I can’t help you, can I?” He asks. 

Her stomach lurches. She wants to ask him to try. She doesn’t want to be alone. 

But she watches him stand up, stuff his hands into his pockets, cast a sad look--punctuated by a head shake--at the floor, and make his way out of the room.

**.oOo.**

Sokka spares her one final look. He doesn’t think that she should try to process everything on her own. But he has already tested his luck with her enough for the day. He should be thankful that she has let him in at all. 

It’s a start. 

He think of turning around and yet he cannot bring himself to do so. So he continues to make his way down the long hallway, hounded by a potent sense that he has lost her.

Had he ever had her friendship at all?


	12. Reconstruction

_ Where there had once been ice there is now fire, it is all around her and it blazes unchecked. It melts the ice that glitters on her frostbitten skin, but it is too late she is already frozen to the core. Frozen to her soul.  _

_ Yet the fire roars on it, it kisses her skin. It isn’t pleasant in the slightest, but it isn’t unpleasant either. _

_ Not for she anyhow.  _

_ The people around her would say different.  _

_ They screech and wail as the flames hug and blanket them. They writhe and kick as it spits sparks and flecks of charred skin.  _

_ The smell fills her nose and the torment fills her ears.  _

_ And in the back of her mind she knows that it is her fault.  _

_ Her fault that their skin blackens and bloodies.  _

_ Her fault that the world is crumbling into smoldering embers.  _

_ Her fault. Everything is her fault.  _

_ The sky turns purple and the clouds bring a light snow as they roll in. But the flames don’t relent and the clouds don’t spill rain. They spill vines. The splat around her in wriggling clumps. And just as the fire latches to the people around her, the vines gather around her. They snake up her arms and curl around her legs, cocooning her until she might suffocate.  _

_ The flaming silhouettes all turn in unison to face her. All features have burned away save for some strands of hair and their eyes. Their horrible hateful eyes. She can see laughter and satisfaction in them as the vines fill her mouth and work into her ears.  _

_ They yank and pull until she feels hollow.  _

_ They yank and pull until she thinks that there isn’t anything left of her.  _

_ Her vision goes black.  _

_ All she can hear is the crackle of the fire. _

Azula rolls onto her side and bunches herself into a rather feeble ball. She thinks that she must have been crying out because her throat is raw. She wishes that her dreams weren’t so vivid. She supposes that the space left by her absent memories leave room for much more intense nightmares. Theories matter none, they don’t provide her with any relief from the constant night terrors. And they only seem to be getting worse as her brain tries to put pieces together. 

Sokka’s recounts and her own assumptions assemble and reconstruct themselves in a myriad of nearly incomprehensibly hellish visions. 

She shudders and hugs her knees closer to her chest. She wonders if anyone has heard her fussing. If they have, they don’t have enough care for her to check up on her. She doesn’t know which she thinks is worse; that no one has heard or or that no one cares. 

Decidedly, she isn’t getting any sleep so she sits herself up and dangles her feet over the side of the bed before finally making the choice to leave it. She wanders into the hallway, finding it to be twice as disconcerting at night when shadows splay themselves around each corner and over the lavish carpeting.

It is all too quiet and leaves her with too much room to think.Mercifully, her head is foggy with sleep. Through the fog, Azula thinks of retreating back into the semi-security of the infirmary--which decidedly isn’t as consoling as her own bed. Maybe she should wander her way to her own room where the mattress and pillows are much plusher. Perhaps she can sleep then. But a pillow, no matter how soft, and a mattress, no matter how cushiony, can block out the nightmares. 

The princess yawns, she wishes that she can find sleep, her dreams have been stealing it from her for days now. And Agni knows she needs it with the beating that her body has taken. Yet she is still shaken by the dream and she can’t place exactly why. 

Instead, she creeps into the kitchen and fixes herself a ludicrously early breakfast, if only to give herself something to do. Something to focus on. She isn’t particularly hungry but she finds herself two eggs and a slice of bread. She thanks Agni for her firebending; she doesn’t have to fuss with noisy pots and pans. Instead she cracks the eggs onto a plate and hovers the plate above the fire dancing in her palm. She cooks her toast similarly. Unable to find any jam, she settles for dipping the toast into the yolk. Preparing a meal and finishing it takes only a half an hour and she is back to where she had begun--creeping around in the dark. 

Though, now, the sky is beginning to lighten from black to the very deep blue of the first stage of sunrise.

**.oOo.**

At first Sokka can’t place the reasoning for his rude awakening and then he sees the figure hovering much too close to his bed. He lets out a surprised yelp. “Azula! What are you doing here!?”

The princess seems to bite the inside of her lip and she shrugs. “I...can’t sleep.”

“So you came here?” 

She nods. “I didn’t know who else to go by.” She pauses. “You’re the only person who bothers with me…” 

Sokka lets out a drawn out sigh. She hasn’t said much at all but he gets the feeling that she has much more to say and it is those unspoken things that are at the heart of her sleeplessness. “Well do you want to…” he tries to come up with the best way of posing his question. “Do you want everyone to get along with you?” 

She shrugs. “Right now I just want to sleep. I just want to stop dreaming.”

She as just as good at dodging questions as she is at stopping him from doing so. “And staying with me will help you do that.” 

She takes another long pause before nodding. “I think so.”

“Alright, you can stay with me.” He gestures holds out an armful of pillows and blankets and gestures to the floor.

Even in the dark he can sense the crinkle of her nose and the crease between her brows. He sighs again, “fine, you can have the bed.” He supposes that it is the least he can do after letting her think that she was a cold blooded murderer. 

He watches her shimmy onto the bed and make herself comfortable, nuzzling her cheek against his pillow. 

“Do you want to try to make some new friends?” He asks again.

“I want you to quiet down for once so that I can sleep, at least for an hour before the sun rises.” 

He must admit that he is impressed by her ability to continuously be a pain in the ass, even when her eyes are droopy with exhaustion. At least this time there is no hostility in it, he can almost pretend that they are back at home having one of their mundane banters. “Good night, Azula.”

“Shut up, Sokka.” 

He rolls his eyes. 

  
  


**.oOo.**

Despite his attempts at chatter, Azula is able to drift off and finally comes to a sleep so deep that she can’t remember her dreams. 

She wakes feeling more or less refreshed. At the very least, she isn’t completely drained. Light drifts in lazy gold rays into the room. It is warm but not unpleasantly so. She might have drifted back off had Sokka not tripped over his own blanket. He falls to the floor with a voluminous thud, his ruckus pulls her into full alertness. She groans in annoyance while he cusses and rubs his knee. 

“Good morning.” He greets with another one of his lopsided smiles. “Thought that I’d make sure you didn’t oversleep.” 

She narrows her eyes, wholly unentertained. 

“We should probably bring you back to the infirmary before Zuko has a meltdown.” He suggests. 

“I don’t need to go to the infirmary. I am fine.” She insists.

“Well Zuko…”

“Will know that I didn’t...take off again...when he sees me at breakfast.” As she says it, she recalls that she has already had breakfast. She supposes that she can just sit there and pretend to be interested in whatever is served.

“So you do want to make friends with everyone.” He quirks a brow and flashes a smug smirk. 

Azula half-frowns, half-pouts. She was certain that he would have dropped it by now. She supposes that he is correct, she thinks that it would do her well to make amends--that opportunity is the single perk she has found to her amnesiac state--but the thought of several horribly awkward conversations hold no appeal. 

“Come on, I’ll help you through it this time.” He offers. It takes her a moment to gather that he is speaking of having left her to fend for herself on the docks. “Can you try to trust me?” 

She folds her arms over her chest. “I still don’t know if everything you told me about my past is true…” 

“It is!” He insists. “One-hundred percent, nothing left out.” He pauses. “Well maybe some things are left out, I don’t know what you did on the beach. Zuko only told me stories about that. But I tried to tell you the whole truth.”

She wishes that his expressions and body language weren’t so earnest. But there is a certain desperation in his voice that tells her that he can’t be lying. And if he is, he is terribly good at it. “I’ll go to breakfast with you.” 

Sokka musters up a hopeful smile. 

She tries not to share in his cheer. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up too much. But his optimism is hard to brush off. Reluctantly she follows him down the hall. 


	13. Over Breakfast

“Are we supposed to go right or left?”

“Why are you asking me!?” Azula nearly throws her hands up.

“This is your house. You’ve been wandering around these halls longer than I have!”

“It would be wonderful if I could recollect that.” Azula crosses her arms. “I told you that I wanted to take the other hallway.” 

“But that’s the long way.” 

“A shortcut is only useful if you know how to navigate it.” Azula frowns.

“This isn’t a shortcut, it’s the main way.” Sokka argues. “You’ve been taking the scenic route.”

Azula narrows her eyes and quirks a brow. “Is that right?” 

“It is.” Sokka replies stubbornly. “When we find the dining room, you can ask Zuko!” 

“ _ If _ we find the dining room.” She grumbles. She supposes that it is more or less a question of if breakfast will still be on the table by the time they get to it. “If you would have just let me take us the way I know…” 

Sokka pouts, “look, I’m hungry and I was trying to take the quickest path!” 

“Yes well, now I’m hungry too because we’ve been wandering around for hours.”

“It’s been like ten minutes.” 

Though she feels as though it has been much longer than that, she presses her lips firmly together and opts to focus on the task at hand instead of bantering with the tribesman. “This way.” She leaves him no option for protest; grabbing him by the wrist, she tugs him down the left hand hallway. She is almost certain that they have already opened every door in the one to the right. Most of them had been unoccupied. Several had lounging guards or servants that she had too much pride to seek directions from. 

They pass another guard. Apparently Sokka’s hunger outweighs his pride. She shoots him a cross look as he begins sputtering out a plea for assistance. As fate would have it, he has picked the newest member or the team. The woman still hasn’t gotten her tour of the palace. He slumps over in defeat and Azula finds herself tugging him along. 

  
  


**.oOo.**

“How could you just let her leave!?” Zuko is practically pulling out his hair. “We just found her!” 

“She was asleep.” Explains the head physician. “The princess doesn’t have a habit of sleepwalking and she usually sleeps through the night, so we had no reason to…”

“She  _ used to _ sleep through the night.” Zuko clarifies “Her therapist said that she almost never sleeps well anymore.” He cringes as he says it. “I told you all to keep an eye on her.”

The man coughs. “With all do respect, your highness, you told the guards to watch over her, not myself and my team.” 

Zuko groans. “Well she’s gone again and…”

“Zuko, maybe she didn’t leave the palace.” Katara offers. 

“Why would she stay? She know that we want to have her locked away again.” 

“She also knows that she’s still hurt…” Katara trails off as Zuko makes his way out of the infirmary. “Zuko, where are you going?”

“To find her before she leaves the palace...if she hasn’t already.” He makes his way to her room first, perhaps she simply wanted the comfort of her own bed. He checks the adjoining bathroom and the walk in closet. All of which are agitatedly vacant. So he scopes out her second favorite spot; the royal spa and bathhouse. Upon finding it occupied by only serving girls, he recalls that she probably doesn’t even remember that the spa had been one of her choice places. 

“Come on Zuko, let’s think this over, over breakfast.” Katara gently suggests. “I think that it’ll take her more than a few hours to overthrow you.” 

Somehow he doubts that, but it isn’t what he frets. “It didn’t take Tom-Tom more than five minutes to fall in the turtleduck pond.” 

Katara rolls her eyes. “I’m sure that Azula can swim just fine.”

“You know what I mean.” Zuko grumbles. 

“Zuko, breakfast won’t start without you there, and Sokka’s probably complaining Aang’s ears off about that.” She sighs. “Azula will be fine for a few hours. She was gone for several days and she’s fine.” 

“Okay, but we’re looking for her after breakfast.” 

Katara nods. He leads the way, still itching to resume is frantic search. Instead he enters the dining room to see his very disgruntled sister slumping back in her chair, arms crossed, and with a dissatisfied pout on her face. 

He thinks that it might have something to do with the bold look on Sokka’s face as he finishes a particularly awful pun and the lack of food on her plate. 

“Oh, hi Zuko!” He waves. 

For the time he ignores Sokka. “Where were you!?”

**.oOo.**

“Me?” Azula scoffs. “I’ve been here with everyone else, wondering what’s taking you so long.” Never mind that she has only seated herself perhaps five minutes ago. 

“I was looking for you! Why aren’t you in the infirmary?” 

“Because sometimes I like to have breakfast.” She makes a point of picking up a spoon. 

“I was going to have them serve it to you in the infirmary.”

Azula waves her hand dismissively. “I have bruises and cuts, not broken bones and stab wounds.” 

“Don’t mind her, Zuko.” Sokka smiles. “She’s a little grumpy because we got a tiny bit lost.” Sokka informs while Azula shoots him a piercing glare.

“I’m a little ‘grumpy’ because I spent one agonizing morning with you.” 

“It was only about an hour.” He insists. 

She is in no mood to resume that argument. “Can I just some food now?” She grumbles. They have wandered for so long that she finds she actually is hungry now. 

“Look.” Zuko sighs. “I was...worried, okay.” 

Azula slightly gnaws on her lower lip. She hadn’t considered that he might have an inkling of care for her, if only because she is his sister. “Fine.” She mutters. Isn’t that what she wants? For people to care for her instead of resenting her? She thinks that she is starting to see why Sokka thinks her difficult and it puts an uncomfortable tickle in her belly. 

The quiet grows thick and she twirls the spoon between her fingers. And when that silence turns into a conversation that she can’t seem to enter, she almost wishes that she had taken breakfast in the infirmary. 

She is certain that she should have just stayed in the infirmary when Sokka puts the spotlight entirely on her, “yeah, she came down here because she wants to make amends. We figured it would be easier since we kind of have a clean slate right now.” 

She thinks that her cheeks might be growing pink and her grip on the spoon tightens. She tries to gauge the temperature of the room. Her brother’s expression seems to soften, while the Avatar’s grows cheerful and optimistic. But not nearly as bright as the expression of--she struggles to place the name again and settles on simply calling her the girl with the braid. But that one is always chipper so Azula doesn’t put too much emphasis on that. Next to her, Mai looks twice as dour and univinting. The expression on Katara’s face is skeptical, but not particularly unwelcoming. And the blind girl looks thoroughly entertained. 

All in all, Azula assesses that her odds, while not ideal, aren’t terrible.

She still finds it hard to come up with something to say. She can’t open with a common memory that they all share and small talk doesn’t come easily. Instead she takes a dainty sip of tea and eyes Sokka over the edge of the teacup. 

It becomes apparent that he isn’t going to help her. 

She doesn’t expect assistance from the blind girl, but she fills the silence. 

“So…” Toph begins. “What was it like to lose your finger?”

Azula sighs, she can’t afford to be choosy about a helping hand. “I don’t know, what was it like to lose your sight?”

“Oh, I never had that.” The girl shrugs. “Answer the finger question!” 

“It stung a lot and then I didn’t feel anything. And then it was gone. And now I can’t get a proper grip on anything.” She can’t seem to get a grip on her mind and life in general. “But I can do this.” She holds up her hand and creates a fiery finger. The girl does not seem impressed, and she recalls that the girl is still, in fact, blind. “It’s a…” decidedly it isn’t as thrilling as she thought it would be so she trails off, “fire finger.” 

Toph grins. “Neat.” 


	14. Almost Authentic

“You should be happy! It was progress.” Sokka smiles. 

“Minimal progress might as well be no progress at all.” Azula returns his expression with a frown that is just as dreary as his smile is hopeful. 

“That’s not true.” Sokka insists. “I think that all Katara and Aang needed was a little sign. They’ll go easier on you now. And Zuko seemed pretty worried when he thought that you left again.”

Azula folds her arms across her chest.

“I think Toph likes you.” He tries. 

“Maybe…” 

“Did you sleep better last night?” He asks. 

For the first time in weeks, her sleep wasn’t plagued with nightmares. She doesn’t recall having woken up at all in the night. She isn’t sure if she should attribute this to Sokka sleeping on the floor next to her bed, or the weight it had taken from her to have finally tried to form a friendship or two. At the very least, she had the pleasure of overhearing her brother suggest that they give her a chance before sending her off to the institution again. 

She has time and a chance now. 

“I did.” She replies. 

“Do you know how hard it is to talk to you when you only reply with two words?”

Azula shrugs.

“Or none at all.”

“Difficult, I suppose.” 

“Three words! You’re being generous today!”

Azula rolls her eyes. Truly, she doesn’t want to be entertained by the man’s antics, but she finds that she is, more or less anyhow. Though her generosity fades, not particularly a spiteful gesture so much as it is that her mind begins to wander away from the present again. 

She hasn’t dreamed of the vines nor the men, so she thinks of them in waking. The nagging desire to find out what has happened to her only grows with each rise of the sun. “Sokka?” She says quietly. 

“Yeah?”

“I think that I do need to go back there…”

This time it is Sokka who frowns. “You’re not crazy, Azula, you just…”

She rises her hand to silence him. “I never said that I am. But if I don’t go back there then I won’t find out what happened to me. I need to know and as far as I know, you can’t recant that story.”

She tries to gauge his expression. “So I’ll have myself transferred back there and I’ll figure it out. It can’t be too hard to convince everyone that I need to go there again…”

“I don’t like it.” 

“Don’t like what?” 

“Your plan.” 

“Then come up with a better one.” 

“Maybe I can come with you?” 

“The last I checked, you are perfectly stable.”

“The more time I spend with you, the less true that is.” 

“You’re hilarious, Sokka.” She replies flatly.

Though all sarcasm is lost on him, or ignored, when he boldly declares, “humor is my specialty.”

“I’m not looking for humor right now. I’m looking for a plan.” 

“And I gave you one. You can get yourself locked up and I can get myself a job as one of the doctors.” He pauses. “I’d feel a lot safer if you didn’t go in alone. What if they try to wipe your memories again.” 

She shrugs and it slips out before she can hold her tongue, “then I won’t have to constantly guess how much of what you say is true.” She cringes at the hurt etched onto his face. “I won’t have to think about that conversation with Toph either.” She tries, but as per usual her delivery saps the humor from her jest. 

“I’m trying to help you, you know that right?” Sokka asks. “It’s awfully hard to do that when you keep…”

Azula makes an effort to ignore whatever he is about to accuse her of. 

“You’re the hardest person that I’ve ever tried to get along with!” He throws his hands up. “And I think that you’re trying to make it hard for people to like you!” 

She is in no mood for a fight and yet she can’t bring herself to let him have the last word. “Then just leave me to my plan.” 

**.oOo.**

He rubs his hand over his face. One of them is going to have to concede if they are going to get anywhere and he knows that Azula is too stubbornly proud to give him an inch. He lifts his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, you win. I’m the jerkbender here.” 

“Stop saying that.” She mutters. 

“I just...can you just try to trust me. I helped you talk to the rest of the gang, right?”

Azula purses her lips for a moment. “You did, yes.”

“So trust me on this too.” He requests. “You can go looking for answers, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

Azula brushes her finger over the place where pinky had been, he doesn’t know what it says that she would rather look at that than him. Finally she pulls her gaze away from her hand and meets his eyes. “Fine, but we do this…”

“Your way?” I figured as much. “I’ll fill Zuko in.” 

Azula nods. “If things don’t go well, you’ll send word to him that it is time for me to come home again.” 

“That was part of the plan.” Sokka smiles. At least some of his fears begin to subside. Control is key, if they can keep the situation under their control then it will be well. He can take comfort in that Azula still seems rather apt at doing just that. 

He makes off to leave the room, and leave Azula to change into her day clothes. But before he does he turns back. It is more of an impulse than anything, scooping her into a small hug and patting her head. “I’m glad that we didn’t fight today.” 

“Yeah.” Azula mutters, her cheeks are a gentle pink. 

When he returns to the room with Zuko, he has to take pause and recollect the nature of their plan. Even a full awareness of it doesn’t prepare him for how well she dresses the part. Her hair is tousled, he thinks that she simply hasn’t bothered to comb it. And she wears the outfit that she has dressed herself in, in an unsettlingly haggard sort of manner. But it is her eyes that throw him off the furthest. She already had a weary look from her sleepless nights, but the bags beneath them were beginning to fade. Now she wears her makeup in a fashion that brings them out and seems to ever so subtly sink her cheeks. 

For a startling moment, he almost thinks that she is truly gone again, he can sense Zuko going rigid next to him. His moment of fear comes to an end when she greets them, “have you already arranged a ship?” Her voice is refreshingly smooth and calm. 

“Yes, we’ve called for one, they’re expecting you within the hour.” Zuko nods. 

“They’re also expecting one brand new, dashingly handsome doctor, appointed by the firelord himself.” Sokka declares. 

Azula quirks a brow, “dashingly handsome?” 

He elects to ignore her sarcasm once more. “Glad you agree.” He slings an arm around her. Honestly, the twin expressions of entertainment truly serves to drive home that he is working with two cranky siblings. “Oh come on, you guys have to admit that I look dashing in this imperial firebender armor.” 

“Dashingly ridiculous.” Azula grumbles. 

“Good thing you’re into dashingly ridiculous.” 

“Gross.” 

**.oOo.**

The docks are abuzz with fishermen and tradesmen both arriving and departing. Her ship is waiting for her at the very end of the pier, nearly out of sight, just as they like to keep their mentally unsound. 

But Azula is seen plain as day right now, and for it she is fixed with many a unkind glares and glowers. Looks that ranged from pity to disgust to complete revulsion. And only for the assumption that she needs help to get herself back on track. 

She likes to think that they simply remember her for her misdeeds, but she has an inkling that they do have a general aversion to those of questionable mental standing. 

Act or not, the princess finds herself feeling somewhat uncomfortable under all of their judging glances and double takes. Apparently it is a source of entertainment to see her being paraded about in study handcuffs. Sturdy as far as they can tell; the cuffs and chains are actually relatively loose around her wrists, a consoling reminder that she isn’t truly being shipped away again. 

Another reminder comes in the form of how kind and light, Zuko’s touch is on her back. She almost freats that if someone were to stare for too long, that they’d realize it is all just for show. Sokka’s arm, linked in hers, is a little rougher--carelessly so rather than maliciously. 

As they near the ship, the crowd begins to thin, until only a few stragglers pass them by and they are quick to step out of the way. 

She thinks that her stance might have grown taunt because, when they find themselves a safe distance from the crowd, Sokka iquires, “you doing okay?” 

Azula nods, “well enough, all things considered.” 

Zuko squeezes her shoulder. She peers up at him and he gives her a reassuring smile. “Your plans usually always went well for you, if that helps.” 

It doesn’t really, not when her mind can’t add meaning to his reassurance. But she nods affirmatively anyhow, lest she deter him from trying to help her when she has only just begun to receive such gestures. 

The ship now looms directly in front of them, casting a large shadow over them. She expects a burly, bushy-browed man to emerge from the ship. Instead a rather wirey looking girl with frizzy hair and spectacles greets them. “It is nice to see you again, Zuko. And it is good to see that you have found your sister alive and…” she gives Azula a once over and force the word, “...healthy.” She takes a brief pause before adding, “relatively speaking.” 

Azula can’t help but feel faintly annoyed by the remark. 

“She’ll be fine, she just needs time. Bozan is usually pretty good at keeping her calm.” Zuko gestures to Sokka. “Which is why it’s crucial to let them speak at least once in the morning and once at night.” 

“Noted, your majesty.” The woman dips her head. She draws a needle. 

Azula suppresses a flinch. 

“Sedation isn’t necessary.” Zuko says perhaps too quickly. “She’s been cooperative, I don’t think that we should risk agitating her.”

She could applauded him for his save.

“If you’re sure.” 

“I am.” He says firmly. And to her he says, “good luck, I’ll see you at home when you recover.”

Yes, when she has recovered what she has lost, she adds silently to herself. She gives him no acknowledgement other than a forced snarl. She isn’t entirely sure that the hurt on his face is feigned. It looks rather genuine. Perhaps she is playing the part jarringly well. 

The woman’s hand replaces Zuko’s and, Sokka trailing behind, she finds herself climbing the ship’s ramp. They pull it in and steal away any thoughts of back out. 


	15. First Session

Azula lies on her back, staring at the ceiling. It is dreadfully boring here, she supposes that dreadfully boring is better than absolute terror. But the boredom in itself leaves her something to fear. The more days that go by without mishap or manipulation, the more unsettled she becomes. So far she has been confined to this white room, safely secured in a straitjacket, for a little over a week and they’ve stopped by her only to offer her medication or recreation time. The more time that passes, the more strongly she feels as though she has been imagining her own predicament. She wishes that they would do something, anything to her. Some minor abuse or form of neglect. But they treat her well enough, all things considered. 

The wirey nurse, who she has come to know as Yion, unbuckles the straps of her straitjacket. It is what serves as her wake up call this morning. She sleepily peers up. “I thought that recreation time was in the afternoon.”

Yion smiles. “You haven’t given us a problem since you’ve arrived so we’ve decided that this…” she gestures at the straitjacket, “isn’t necessary anymore.” 

“Oh.” She replies simply. She should be thrilled to be free of the discomforts. 

“Would you like to speak with Bozan?”

Azula nods. 

“Is there anything that I can do in the meantime?” 

She shakes her head.

“Alright, I’ll have Bozan here in a moment.” The nurse smiles. 

Azula waits for the door’s closing before she wraps her arms around herself and shudders. The thought that she has put herself in here for no reason leaves her feeling more anxious than the gaping hole in her mind. Once more she finds herself pondering upon the idea that it would do her better to seek out her memories in the Forgetful Valley. 

Sokka enters the room as she is propping herself up against the bedpost. “Hey.” He greets sheepishly. “You look pretty upset for someone who just got free use of her arms.” 

“That’s why I’m unhappy, Sokka.”

“Because you don’t like your arms?” He asks.

“Because they’re being friendly?”

“Too friendly?”

“No.” Azula mutters. “That’s the problem. Sokka, they aren’t doing anything. Nothing here is...off.” 

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

She shakes her head. His eyes seem to dim and she thinks that he is beginning to understand. “You don’t think that they have anything to do with your amnesia, do you?”

“No, I don’t think that they do.”

“You’ve only been here for a little over a week.” He points out. “Maybe they’re just keeping a low profile?”

**.oOo.**

“I--I don’t think so.” 

He hates hearing her sound so unsure. Coupled with the way she protective hugs herself. He thinks momentarily of giving her a reassuring hug of his own, but he isn’t sure that she would take well to that. Even if she did, he couldn’t risk letting a gesture like that be seen. 

“I just...have a feeling that it’s not them.”

“If you weren’t captured, then why would you have such crazy dreams!?” 

“Because I am crazy, Sokka.” 

Again he wishes to reach out to her. At least some small, supportive gesture. Instead he watches her put her head to her pillow and pull the blanket over her shoulder. He thinks that the blanket is too thin. She seems to stare off. 

“I’ll find something.” He declares. 

She crinkles her brows. “Find what?”

“Something! Anything! Proof that you’re not crazy.” 

He sees her swallow. “Why do you care so much? After everything that happened...from the sound of it, you hated me.” 

“I don’t have to keep hating you.” He replies. “Back when we were back at home, I really enjoyed talking to you. You were funny and kind of adorable.” His mind wanders to the scrunchy face she had made upon eating his seaweed stew.

“I’m not adorable. Say that again and I will make sure that you change your mind.” 

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” He laughs. “Cute and funny.” 

She fixes him with a deadpan stare and rolls to face the wall. 

“My point is, I don’t care that much about the past. It’s the future that matters, right?” 

**.oOo.**

But her life is so deeply centered around reclaiming her past. 

Not for the first time, she considers that it might be easier if she’d just let go. To abandon such drab memories a focus on forging ones that are worth keeping. 

“Can you have a future if you don’t have a past?” She asks. 

He gives her a little nudge. “Of course you can, and your future is…” he trails off as he tries to imagine a future for her. “Going home and making amends with your brother and my friends. You don’t need your memories to move on.” His face brightens. “It’s probably easier to move forward when you don’t have memories attached.” 

She can swear that he has a particular memory in mind. One that he’d rather get rid of, perhaps several.

Without warning, the door clammors open. “Sorry to intrude.” Yion apologizes. “But we believe that it is time for the princess to see Dr. Yu-Kang.” 

Azula sits herself up and exchanges a glance with Sokka. 

“I’ll see you at dinner?” 

“At dinner, yes.” Azula confirms. 

“Alright, good luck with your first session.” 

Her stomach lurches at the mention of a first session and it flutters twice over as Yion leads her down the hall. “You’re just going to let me wander around unbound?”

“Unless you give us a reason not to.” Yion answers. Something in her tone tells Azula, that she almost expects to see her back in bindings. She stops in front of a door and gives it a knock. “You should remember Dr. Yu-Kang from before you...fled.” 

“I  _ should _ ...”

Before Yion can interrogate her, Dr. Yu-Kang beckons her inside. The woman is well groomed with short hair and golden eyes lined carefully with khol. She is rather tall, but then, Azula thinks that most people are. “Have a seat, princess.”

Azula makes herself as comfortable as she can.

“It has been a while since we’ve last spoken, yes?” 

“Correct.” Azula replies.

“So I suppose that I should ask you if there’s anything that you’d like to talk to me about, perhaps you’d like to resume where we left off.”

“Where did we leave off?” She asks. 

“You mentioned your mother, several times. You didn’t give me much more than that. Maybe you can tell me why the two of you don’t have a good relationship.” 

Azula’s frown deepens. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.” Azula repeats. “I don’t know why our relationship is so poor.”

Dr. Yu-Kang sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Please don’t make this difficult.” 

Difficult. 

She is beginning to think that it must be true if everyone keeps saying it of her. Even when she doesn’t mean to be difficult. Yu-Kang sighs a second time, but this time her expression is kinder, more sympathetic. “I apologize, I shouldn’t have said that. We can start with something simpler.”

“Yes, that would be best.” She hadn’t even thought of her parents and any problems she might have had with them. She swallows again, feeling a new kind of hollow, she can’t even put a face to her parents. Much less, past arguments. 

  
  
  


“Perhaps you can tell me why you ran away, not once, but twice.” 

“Twice?” 

“Yes, twice. Once after your agreement with your brother and once after your transfer.”

Azula’s head aches with confusion. And she thinks that it renders on her face because Yu-Kang elaborates, “on behalf of your brother, we did a sweep of the Forgetful Valley and we found you. You remained with us for several days before we decided to transfer you to a facility closer to the Capital.”

Azula rubs the heels of her hands into her eyes, she doesn’t know if she should attribute the gesture to frustration or stress. Whatever it is, it is becoming more nagging and troublesome with each new partial fact she acquires. 

“I can’t tell you that either.” 

Yu-Kang opens her mouth and closes it again, thinking better of what she had been about to say. “You can’t tell me because you don’t remember.” It is more of a statement than a question. 

“I was in the Forgetful Valley, you said it yourself.”

“Yes…” the woman trails off. “But you had several sessions with me after that and had no trouble telling me exactly what you thought of your brother, mother, and half-sister…” She breaks off again. “You truly can’t recall anything?”

“Nothing.” 

**.oOo.**

“Does the Fire Lord know of his sister’s condition?” The woman’s voice is steely and stern.

“Her condition?” Sokka sputters, his mind immediately drifting towards Azula’s missing finger.

“That she can’t remember a thing.” 

“You know about that!? She told you that?”

“Not explicitly.” Yu-Kang replies. “But you’ll find that I can put pieces together.”

“Zuko knows.” Sokka replies, though he doesn’t know if he should. He finds himself wishing that Azula had done a better job of hiding her confusion, though he decides that it might be difficult when bombarded with questions about her past and what makes her tick. Still, he doesn’t think that it is smart to give up every little detail. 

“And you didn’t think to let us know, Mr. Bozan?” 

He shrugs. 

“This is a serious matter. We’ve had several concerns regarding the princess’ well being and not all of them have to do with the danger she poses to herself.” 

“She’s not that dangerous to herself.” He finds himself saying.

“That isn’t what we are discussing right now, Mr. Bozan. There are sinister organizations that have taken an interest in the princess and her...unique psyche. And if we are going to protect her we need to know what you know.”


	16. Connecting The Dots

Being alone and confined to her room leaves her mind ample room to wander. It makes her uncomfortable for a reason that she can’t place. A reason that she is certain is rooted to whatever event that keeps recreating itself in her mind.

They haven’t came to lead her to dinner yet and she finds that her stomach is faintly panging with hunger, she isn’t particularly accustomed to being kept waiting. Something in her mind stirs. Something unpleasant. 

Something that sits annoyingly on the fringes of her brain. 

She tries to mentally reach out for it, to grasp the fingers of her mind around it, whatever it is. The effort puts a faint ache in her head to match the one in her belly. It is such a dull ache that it might not be there at all. It is not unlike whatever she is reaching for. 

When she finally does take hold of this elusive thing, she at once, wishes that she had just let it slip. It is not a kind nor warm thing. It is cruel and jarring. Her fight to recollect it had been such a strong fight that she can’t push it back now that it unfolds itself before her. 

_ She is in a room, not unlike the one she is in now. But it is dark, dark and has a frosty edge. She gathers, that she is in the poles. She shivers and weaves in and out of wakefulness until she is suspended in a state of semi-consciousness. This is when they attack her. Their approach instills an alertness in her. One that they didn’t expect but anticipated all at once. Several needles jab into her neck and arms.  _

_ She falls limp, her face knocks against the hard floor. It is when they surround her--their faces still refuse to surface, so in her minds eye, they have none at all--that she realizes that she is naked. Completely so; humiliated, prone, and exposed. No wonder the cold ails her so. _

_ They lift her limp form from the ground and practically drag her down a hall. She doesn’t know if she can call it that; it is more like a natural tunnel crafted of gnarled roots and vines. The ground is damp on her knees as they scrape against it.  _

_ There is a gap in her mind. A big and yawning empty cavern.  _

_ And then she is in a room. One that glows eerily magenta. Her body is tense.  _

She realizes that it is tense in the here and now. That she is quivering, even if only slightly. 

_ They lay her down and bind her tightly with a horribly itchy rope. It isn’t necessary, her body is still numb and useless. They lay the vines across her head.  _

_ The next bit is more emotional than physical. She can’t recant what they did to her but she recalls desperation and fear. An unrelenting nagging of her fight or flight, but being unable to act upon either. So they give way to anxiety and helplessness as whatever happens unfolds. Her emotions flicker in flashes of purple. _

_ There is another gap in her mind. _

In the white room she has folded in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest. And if asked she wouldn’t even be able to say why. 

_ She is still in the room but now she is laying on her back and they are dragging a thin blade over her belly. She doesn’t know what they are looking for, but they are opening her up to find it.  _

She feels ill and faint and as the memory dies mercifully away, she realizes that she is crying. She can feel phantom prickles of pain in her midsection and brings her hands to clutch it almost protectively. 

She hasn’t paid her body much mind, save for her missing finger. With this memory newly uncovered, she finds herself lifting her shirt partly. 

Her tummy, near her bellybutton, is marked with several thin lined scars that occasionally end with dots like large needle pricks. A grim constellation on her torso. Just below her bellybutton is a larger scar, one that looks almost like a puncture wound. 

She gets a distinct feeling that they have stolen something else from her, but she can’t even begin to place what that might be. 

The shaking of her body intensifies. 

She notices, for the first time, the faintest raise of the skin on her arms. More, thin lines accented by small dots. These are so subtle that she wouldn’t have noticed them if not for the memory. And if she had, she would have thought that they were no more than birthmarks, or perhaps, the product of some accident. 

She traces her pointer over one of the many lines on her tummy; the skin is raised ever so slightly and somewhat rough. She doesn’t think that it had healed properly. 

“Sorry I’m so late, I have something to share with you at dinner!” She jumps at Sokka’s sudden intrusion. “Dr. Yu-Kang and I were talking and…” his face seems to scrunch up in confusion. “What are you doing?”

She must look truly mad, sitting there with her shirt half pulled up and crying. It would almost be funny if it weren’t for the situation. She quietly gestures to the markings on her stomach. At first he doesn’t seem to put two and two together. “Did I…? Have these before?” 

Sokka presses his lips together and shakes his head. “No.” 


	17. To Hold An Enemy

This time he doesn’t think it over, doesn’t give himself time to second guess. He gives her time to pull her shirt back down and smooth it out before taking her into a hug. She is very rigid and he can feel its tremble as he tightens his hold. 

“You shouldn’t…” she starts. 

“It’s fine, Dr. Yu-Kang already knows that I’m not Bozan.” He replies as he strokes her hair. 

“Why would you tell her that?” 

“The same reason you told her that you lost your memories.” He shrugs. 

She fixes him with a soft pout. 

“How did you find that.” He hovers his hand over her scarred torso. 

“I remembered something. I…” She swallows hard. 

“Not a good memory, I take it?” 

She shakes her head. 

“Do you want to…”

“No!” 

“Okay, we can just sit here in silence, I guess.” He tries not to sound sarcastic. 

“Maybe if you can keep your mouth shut for more than two minutes.” She mutters. He might have found himself offended if he weren't so relieved that she is still sound enough to give him snarky remarks at all. 

Still she trembles ever so slightly, he can feel the teeny tremors against his chest. Every now and again she utters a small and gasping cry, try as she might to stifle it. 

It rattles him that this memory has left a bigger emotional impact than the loss of her finger. 

He takes that hand and squeezes it and, with his free hand, rubs small circles on her back. She nuzzles herself closer and closes her eyes. For a good while he holds his silence, he wants to speak, be it to press her for the details of her newly recovered memory or to simply mumble words of consolation. But the extra noise only seems to heighten her turmoil so he settles for continuing to rub her back. She seems to take well to that. 

She seems to respond well to physical contact in general; he finds it rather curious as she never struck him as the type who would. 

Odder still is knowing, even in the forefront of his mind, that it is a former enemy that so close. That, had her mind been left untampered with, she would sooner stike a bolt of lighting through his chest than let him touch her. 

He never imagined any sort of kindness between he and the princess. Much less a situation where she’d lean against him in need of solace. 

He feels her hand cup over his. Her touch is very light, a subtle and refined as many of her other gestures. The quivering of it seems to be lessening. 

He stops rubbing her back to wipe the tears from her cheeks now that they are beginning to subside. He tightens his hug. 

“I’m tired, Sokka.” Azula comments. He can hear as much in her voice. 

“Alright, how about you go to sleep for a bit and then we can discuss everything with Dr. Yu-Kang after dinner.” 

“I don’t want to sleep.” She replies. 

“I’ll be here the whole time if that helps.”

Azula thinks his offer over. “It might.” 

He moves out of the way and watches her make herself at least somewhat cozy, under the thin blanket. She seems to fidget with the sheet for a while until she finds herself a satisfactory position. 

“You want me to sit over there or…”

Her hand snakes out and her fingers curl around his wrist. 

“Alright, I’ll just sit here then.” He tries to make himself comfy at the foot of her bed and figure out what he will fill his time with while he waits for her to wake up. 

**.oOo.**

Having found some rest, Azula finds it easier to shake of the worst of her dreads, though her sleep has been cut short for a reason she can’t yet gather. She begins to seek out the cause but finds that her attention is pulled away by the phantom pangs of pain tickle up and down the scars that criss-cross over her middle and along her arms. 

She feels a weight on her back and it takes her a moment to recall that she has let Sokka remain on the bed with her. He lurks with the back of his head pressed against the wall, snoring loudly. 

Ludicrously loudly. 

She decides that this must have been what roused her from slumber. 

And along such, she decides that it is only fair for him to rudely awaken him too. She gives him a harsh shake, only taking enough care to keep from knocking his head against the wall. He gives a start and a sputtered, “wh-what the…?”

“Good evening.” She greets. 

He groans and rubs his face. “You couldn’t have just called my name or something.” 

She shakes her head. “You were snoring very loudly. It was obnoxious, so I had to put a stop to it.” 

“Glad that you’re feeling better.” He rubs the back of his head. He stands up and stretches his arms. “You read for dinner.” 

“I am.” Though she is more ready to hear what Dr. Yu-Kang has to say. 

The designated dinner time has already passed so she follows Sokka to the doctor’s office. The woman sits behind her desk with three plates paced upon it. “Dinner will be here shortly.” She notes, her voice as stoic as ever. “In the meantime there are quite a few things that need discussing. Namely, the current state of your mind.” 

“Yes, that’s what we usually talk about in these places.” Azula replies, nearly as dryly. 

“I do believe that I might know who is responsible for stealing your memories. But I am going to need to know what you know.”

“I don’t know much about it at all.” She admits. “You probably know more than I.”

“Mr. Bozan…” she clears her throat. “Sokka, mention that he found you in the poles in the middle of a blizzard?” 

“That’s correct.” She confirms. 

“Can you share any details? Or is your escape a blur too.” 

Azula crosses one leg over the other. “Parts are, yes. Especially towards the end.”

“The end?”

“Before I collapsed.”

“You mean that you don’t remember my dashing and daring rescue!?” Sokka pouts. 

“I told you that a while ago.”

“I thought that you were joking.”

She shakes her head. “Not entirely.” 

“Can you recount what you do remember?”


	18. Azula

_ It is a cold like no other. A cold so deep that it practically freezes the fire out of her.  _

_ That’s what  _ they _ \--whoever they are--want. It makes her passive and complaisant.  _

_ It makes her weak.  _

_ She tries to remember their faces but they always take care to reap the memory from her mind before they send her off and back to her prison. At least she thinks so; there is a familiarity in the process of...of...whatever it is that they have done to her. There is a familiarity in being led back to her sorry excuse of a room with a freshly harvested mind and a mighty sense of loss.  _

_ She is almost certain that they have been through this song and dance time and time again. Perhaps once daily.  _

_ She thinks that her mind is rotting. It must be with all of the tampering and pillaging that it has seen. _

_ She huddles herself in a corner, laying in a fetal position with her hands clasped upon her head. She is shaking with an agonizing myriad of cold, fear, and pain. Her arms are bleeding. She isn’t sure that anyone is going to come and put a stop to it. She feels more and more nauseous as the blood flows heavier.  _

_ And feels sicklier still, when she tries to recall exactly what has made her bleed, but fails to conjure anything at all.  _

_ All she knows is that she is bleeding and hurting and as far as she is concerned, there is no reason for it at all.  _

_ She thinks that she might have been created to pick apart. That her very conception was for the sole purpose of whatever this is.  _

_ She doesn’t know much but she knows that she has to get out.  _

_ There is no choice.  _

_ They will kill her if she doesn’t.  _

**_.oOo._ **

_ Her head feels groggy and her arms are all prickly. _

_ She inspects her arms.  _

_ They are stitched but she isn’t sure why. _

_ She doesn’t recognize this room. _

_ She doesn’t know how she got here.  _

_ It is cold. _

_ She sits up, her brows knit as it occurs to her that she doesn’t remember her name either. She isn’t sure that she even has one. She looks around the room, it is entirely white and barren of any furnishing. She is sure that she doesn’t have a name. People with names don’t get treated like this. _

_ How long has she been here? _

_ She doesn’t know much but she knows that she has to get out.  _

_ There is no choice.  _

_ She will die if she doesn’t.  _

**_.oOo._ **

_ Her head aches and her abdomen throbs. She holds a hand to her belly, it comes away slick and wet. Her stomach lurches and she thinks that she may throw up, there is so much blood.  _

_ So, so much blood. _

_ It’s all over.  _

_ It weeps from her tummy and stains her hands and clumps strands of her hair, making it stick to her back which is also decently bloodied.  _

_ The ground is sticky with crimson and… _

_ No wait… _

_ She doesn’t have clothes for it to soil. _

_ She clutches her head and tries to fathom why this is happening to her. Why someone or several someones would leave her to die in a pool of her blood.  _

_ She trembles violently as she cries silently to herself.  _

_ She doesn’t even know who she is.  _

_ Whoever has done this to her, she does know one thing; that she has to get out.  _

_ There is no choice.  _

_ They will kill her if she doesn’t.  _

**_.oOo._ **

_ She feels the pangs before she fully awakens. Her world is still black when they begin. For a time she is only those faint prickles of pain, she has no body, she has no soul. Those unpleasant tingles make up her entire essence. _

_ And then light enters her world, she thinks, for the first time.  _

_ But no, that can’t be right.  _

_ Can it? _

_ But she sure feels like a newborn.  _

_ She holds her hands out in front of her, they seem somehow foreign. Her attention to them is pulled away as a particularly sharp stab flares up in her midsection. She brings her foreign hands to touch the throbbing portion of her abdomen.  _

_ She finds that the skin there is rough and prickly. She takes a deep breath and wills herself to look. The flesh of her belly bares resemblance to a quilt with the amount of stitches decorating it. The skin around the threads is red and swollen. In some places the swelling is much worse.  _

_ She makes the mistake of rubbing her thumb over one of the lines, hissing when she elicits an intense sting.  _

_ She stares down the length of her body long enough to notice markings criss-crossing her arms. They are a fainter pink. _

_ When had she gotten those? _

_ She wants to bunch herself up and burry her face in her knees, but doing so irritates her entire torso, so she sits in the middle of the floor shivering against the biting cold and wishing that she hadn’t woken at all.  _

_ She doesn’t know who put her here. _

_ She doesn’t know much but she knows that she has to get out.  _

_ There is no choice.  _

_ They will kill her if she doesn’t.  _

**_.oOo._ **

_ Something has gone wrong.  _

_ She isn’t sure if it has gone wrong for them or for her.  _

_ She is fairly certain that it has gone wrong for them. _

_ Because this time it is still there.  _

_ This time she has an awareness.  _

_ She know, for certain, that she has not just been born or freshly created and tossed into that room. There is something else. Something that came before it. She just isn’t sure what.  _

_ She has a name, she knows that she does.  _

_ They have simply stolen it from her. She raps on her head trying to coax it to the forefront. They had said it to her. They had said it to her when she was in that room.  _

_ What room?  _

_ She clutches her hands over her ears, it is boundlessly frustrating. She remembers the room only in fragments. She thinks that it was even colder than the one she is confined to now. She knows that they care very little for her comfort and well being.  _

_ That doesn’t serve her any help in recalling who she had been before this room. Had she been anyone at all? Or was she brought into this world for the purpose of having her memory wiped over and over again. An endless loop of patterns that she can’t remember. Is her entire existence this? Has it always been so? _

_ She doesn’t know much but she knows that she has to get out.  _

_ There is no choice.  _

_ They will kill her if she doesn’t.  _

_ She doesn’t know how much time has passed but it has been hours. Hours of nothing but cold. This isn’t strictly true, there is a warmth in her belly. It is faint but she can feel it there. She tries to focus on it and it alone, maybe if she does, it can keep her warm. She coaxes the warm to spread from her belly to her chest and then to her face. And then she beckons it down her legs and over her arms.  _

_ To her feet.  _

_ Last to her palms where it erupts.  _

_ She jolts back at the flames that burst from her fingers.  _

_ She doesn’t plan to try that again. But in her boredom and to relieve herself of the cold, she does. This time she is prepared for it and makes herself enough fire to provide some comfort. She doesn’t know what this is. She isn’t sure if she has always been able to do it, but it feels right enough for her to think that she has.  _

_ It comes so naturally.  _

_ She doesn’t know if this ability is unique to her or if others can do it too. _

_ Maybe she is here because they want to pick her apart and find out how she calls flames to her hands? _

_ She doesn’t know much but she knows that she has to get out.  _

_ There is no choice.  _

_ They will kill her if she doesn’t. _

_ She hears metal on metal and a decently loud clunk and knocking and her flame sputters out. The door opens for the first time.  _

_ No, not the first time.  _

_ The first time that she remembers.  _

_ “Get up, Azula.”  _

Azula

_ That sounds familiar.  _

_ She has heard that before. _

_ “Get up.” The gruff voice repeats.  _

_ And she does.  _

_ She gets up and throws a fistful of fire into his face. _


	19. Ceaseless White

_ Her dash is a mad and frantic one. She doesn’t know where she is going and she hasn’t much time to figure it out. Her only advantage is that they hadn’t expected her to make a move. That they have to regain composure as she tries to slip away. _

_ She rounds another corner and another after that, throwing door upon door open. Some of them refuse to budge and the ones that do aren’t particularly useful; a kitchen, a supply closet, and an empty white room are among them. She pries open one more and finds herself another closet. This one is full of coats and furs. Her eyes light up, if only for a moment, as she hustles to find a coat the will fit her. Most of them are several sizes too big. And the one that she ends up pulling over her arms leaves a lot of excess sleeve. _

_ She reaches into the pockets and finds a pair of mittens, she fusses with stuffing her hands into them as she continues her directionless sprint. She finds that they are also at least a size too big.  _

_ She takes another corner. _

_ The man lurches at her so fast that she can’t weigh the pros and cons of firebending. The flames burst from her hand before she can call them back. They have done their part, the man finds himself sprawled out on the floor with a trail of smoke rising from his chest. But they have also burned a decent sized hole in the mitten, near her pinky.  _

_ She hasn’t the time to spare it a second thought, she can hear their footsteps growing hazardous close. _

_ A whole stampede of them.  _

_ If they catch up she hasn’t a chance at all.  _

_ Her lungs burn by the time she reaches what she thinks is a lobby of sorts. She can hear them shouting various things. “Azula!” And, “if you surrender now, we will show mercy.” Or, “turn back and we will keep treating you with the kindness we have been.” _

_ She shudders. If what they had been doing was kindness… _

_ Azula pushes herself forward despite the searing pain in her middle. She doesn’t remember taking any damage in her flight, it must be one of the many things they had done to her before taking her to the room. She doesn’t have time to fight for the memory, even when it is in reach, so she lets it go. _

_ Ignoring all calls to stop, both internal and external, Azula crosses the length of the lobby, begging the universe to let it be that it truly is a lobby. She knows that it must be, otherwise they wouldn’t be yelling so frantically.  _

_ She can hear them behind her. They call her mad as she yanks the door open and steps into the swirling blizzard.  _

_ But she thinks that it would be twice as mad to stay in a place where she knows she will only find torment. At least in the endless white expanse there is a chance for something else. Somehow the white of the landscape seems more merciful than the white of the room she had been imprisoned in. _

_ She had thought that it had been frosty in her little white room, this… _

_ This is on another level.  _

_ It is a frigidness so piercing that she thinks it has penetrated her very soul. It is so dreadfully biting that, though she has only stepped just out of arm’s reach, the men behind her refuse to pursue any further.  _

_ “Azula, get back inside!” _

_ The wind slams against her cheeks and tosses a burst of white into her face and she almost listens.  _

_ Instead, she takes a defiant step forward.  _

_ “You absolute lunatic, come back here where it’s warm.” Demands a different voice.  _

_ “The tundra is no place for a firebender!” Calls another.  _

_ His voice is growing distant. All of their shouts are. They grow softer and softer until they are wholly buried under the shrieking howl of the arctic storm. _

_ Though it is hard with the cold practically freezing her face, she smiles. She has won. _

_ She is free! _

_ She drags herself further out into the flurry. With the jubilations of victory wearing off, the cold begins to register more potently. It is more relentless than she had anticipated. It stings, she didn’t think that it would or could. Perhaps if she had remembered what it was like to be cold, thoroughly, unforgivingly cold, she wouldn’t have fled. No, she knows that this isn’t true. She thinks that death by frost is better than death by whatever means they have planned.  _

_ But death is death… _

_ It is hard to walk between the force of the gusts that spit flakes into her face--and, occasionally, shards of ice--and the general depth of the snow already on the ground. It would burden a person of average height. Azula is well aware that she is small, as so, the snow comes up to her knees. In some places, when she steps wrong, she finds that it comes to her hips.  _

_ When this happens she is filled with a panic like no other.  _

_ She is stuck, lodged within the ground. She claws furiously at it and snow fills her gloves, entering through the hole she’d burned through it. Her pinky begins to burn with the cold. She yearns to heat it, pines to summon a burst of fire to melt the snow trapping her. But her body heat has plummeted so significantly that it is a lost cause.  _

_ After a breath stealing effort she manages to claw her way to freedom once more. For a good while, she simply lays there, panting heavily, watching the snow drift onto her cheeks. They are now a bright red. She picks herself up, for fear of being buried alive if she lays for much longer. _

_ The world around her is so completely and unrelentingly white that, for a good while, she can’t see any more than an arms length away. And the wind whips at her so violently that she can hardly breathe let alone make any further forward progress. She doesn’t even have a destination.  _

_ She isn’t sure that there is anything out here at all; maybe the world is just one large and cold white expanse and she has just left the sanctuary of the only human territory that there is left in the world. She pushes herself forward, some part of her wishing that she hadn’t been born into a world that is only varying shades of cold and different degrees of pain.  _

_ It grows harder still to move about as her legs begin to sting with cold and her muscles begin to ache from fighting against mounds of snow. She thinks that, perhaps, she hadn’t had the opportunity to use them much during her imprisonment; they are so stiff and sore and weak. She is stiff and sore and weak.  _

_ For a moment, the snow relents some and she can see ahead of her with a little more clarity.  _

_ But with her wobbly, aching legs, she finds herself growing clumsier, stumbling more often and taking longer to recover from each fall. She thinks that soon she won’t have the energy to get up at all. She feels like she is made entirely of ice. That if she moves the wrong way, she will break, crack and fall to pieces. She continues her froward stumble until it becomes a mantra in her mind, left foot, right foot, left again. And then even that background noise dies away.  _

_ She doesn’t think that she has much left in her.  _

_ How long has she been wandering? _

_ Left and right lose meaning.  _

_ North, south, east, and west never existed at all.  _

_ Her body shivers uncontrollably, she can no longer feel her nose and pinky. Her toes are growing numb too as wetness soaks into her borrowed boots. And she is tired, oh so mercilessly tired.  _

_ She can swear that she sees a fire in the distance. She thinks that this may be the product of a mind broken by fear and stress.  _

_ In the back of her mind she knows that she should keep fighting her way to it, but the forefront of her mind and her prone and spent body protest. She takes one more step and her body can endure no more. She topples. _

_ And this time she hasn’t the strength to push herself back to her feet.  _

_ The snow begins falling harder again, the breeze biting and unsympathetic.  _

_ She begins to succumb, the cold embeds itself more deeply into her bones.  _

_ And yet, she doesn’t regret her escape; the cold is kind in the sense that it is just doing what it has always done by nature; blustering and howling, wholly indifferent to anyone caught in its path. Her captors had a choice. They are so willfully evil that it is hard for her to comprehend.  _

_ At least this death will be a quick one. _

_ Not the deliberately slow and drawn out one that they had in mind for her. _

_ At least she will die as Azula.  _

_ She may not know who Azula is, but at least she will die with a name.  _

_ She closes her eyes. _


	20. Tracking Fire

Sokka and Dr. Yu-Kang stare at her for quite a long time. Long enough to make her feel somewhat jittery, as though she has said something wrong.

“May I see?” 

“See what?” 

“The stitchwork.” 

Azula doesn’t know why this is important but she holds out her arms. Dr. Yu-Kang holds her arm up by the wrist and inspects the thin patchwork of scars. “Can I see the ones on your stomach?”

Azula lifts her hikes her shirt up some and holds it there. Dr. Yu-Kang seems to purse her lips in concentration and makes a small sucking noise. “I am going to call for one of our medical doctors and see what he makes of this. I do believe that this is a trademark of The Vine Research Facility. You aren’t the first person to show up with these marks.”

Azula’s heart quickens. “You’ve seen this before?”

Dr. Yu-Kang nods. “Two others, yes.”

“Did they lose their memories too?” Sokka asks. 

Yu-Kang presses her lips together and her face darkens. “We don’t know, they were found dead. We only know of them because they had been patients of ours and we were suspects in their deaths. We were quite thoroughly investigated.”

“Who were they?” Azula asks. 

“The son of Admiral Chan and master Jeong Jeong.” 

“Jeong Jeong is dead!?” Sokka asks. “Does Zuko know about this?” 

“I don’t have a hand in those matters. That is a job for the Capital City guards. I believe that the chief guard has plans to fill the Fire Lord in at the meeting in a day’s time. I will send for them as well,” she looks to Azula, “your condition may be part of a rather complex scheme.” 

Azula shudders almost involuntarily. 

“If I may guess, they have taken you and Jeong Jeong because you have extraordinary firebending abilities. It’s appetizing to people like them.”

Azula doesn’t feel as though she possesses such, she thinks that if she had, she would have been able to keep herself from their clutches or, at the very least, from having succumbed to the cold. 

“Entertain yourselves and have your meal, I am going to bring in Dr. Phang, he is one of our leading doctors in chi-point anatomy and rehabilitation. I’d like him to tend to your chi-points, they look rather damaged even from the outside.” She pauses. “What I mean to say is that you’re in good hands, Dr. Phang is a reputable man.” 

Azula nods. She watches the woman exit the room. 

She doesn’t stop Sokka when he reaches his hand out and takes hers. “At least we’re getting closer to solving this, right?” 

She shrugs. “Perhaps. Or maybe it is a dead end.” 

“I don’t think that it is.” He replies. 

“I just can’t believe that anyone would lock you in a room like that…”

She bites back a snippy remark about how he and Zuko had been discussing doing just that only a few days ago. It is a small scrap of progress to have not lashed out at him while he is trying to soothe her. Instead she says, “apparently, I have a lot of enemies. Is it all that surprising?” 

He rubs the back of his head. “I guess that it’s just hard for me to comprehend how someone could do that…” he motions to her arms and she absently finds herself rubbing them. “And not just to you, but to someone like Jeong Jeong.”

**.oOo.**

Though her body is tight and tense, she holds herself high. He knows that she is strong and determined--he always knew--and yet he still finds it incredible that she can carry herself with such composure even knowing that her chi has possibly been tampered with. 

It might be rude but he can’t help staring at the scars lining her arms, at the hand he holds with its empty space. He squeezes it without thinking. She has already gone through so many insufferable pains and he is almost certain that there are more on the way, even if they aren’t physical harrows. 

Despite everything, he just wants her to feel safe and unburdened. 

“Stop that.” She mutters.

“Stop what?” He asks. 

“Staring.” She replies, slipping her hand into her pocket. 

He flushes. “Sorry.”

“You will be if you do it again.” She grumbles. 

Without thinking, he ruffles her hair as he does whenever he pesters Katara. The princess frowns and he offers her only a psuedo-innocent smile. “Can we just eat now?” She grumbles. He picks up a fork and holds it in front of her face. 

“I can feed myself, Sokka.” She crosses her arms and fixes him with that pout he is becoming so familiar with. It is almost endearing. Azula herself is rather enduring when she isn’t chasing him with a fist full of fire. His stomach does a little flop, he is beginning to wonder if he is getting too fond of her. She already finds him annoyingly affectionate. 

He gives his head a light shake; what is he saying? He is just trying to support a friend in need, it is that simple. 

**.oOo.**

Azula lies on her stomach with her arms folded and crossed under her head. Several tea light candles cast the room in a warm ambiance. Dr. Phang carefully massages her chi points starting with the one at the base of her spine. She gives a small sigh as some of the stiffness in within fades away. They aren’t even a minute into the session and her body already feels so much less tense. 

She hadn’t even realized that her chi points were so clogged until the doctor got to clearing the pathways. 

“You look relaxed.” Sokka notes. 

She cracks an eye open. “I was until you kicked the door in.”

“Whoops.” He mutters. “What are we doing in here anyways?”

“Her chi points are very swollen and congested.” Dr. Phang notes. “I just had a waterbender in here, we’re working to heal and soothe. Frankly, it is a wonder that she has been able to bend at all.” 

Sokka pulls up a chair. “You look like you’re enjoying yourself.” 

“Yes.” Azula hums softly. “It feels nice.” 

“It must be like a trip to the royal spa.” He remarks. 

“Not quite that nice.” She replies. Not that she has had much of a chance to truly get acquainted with the palace’s spa. But she imagines that it has more to offer than the makeshift one that they have created in Dr. Yu-Kang’s office. “You said that you wanted to help me?”

“Yeah, I might have said something like that.” Sokka replies. “Why?” 

“After Dr. Phang and I talk about what he thinks has happened to me, perhaps you can get some massage tips from him.” She finds herself unable to keep her voice from slipping into a languid drawl. 

“I guess that I can, but I can’t promise that I’ll be any good at it.” 

Azula rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, Sokka. I’m just teasing you.” 

“Oh…” his face reddens. 

Dr. Phang holds out a towel and motions for Sokka to look away as she wraps around her body. “Done.” She announces. 

Dr. Phang turns back to her. “Hold out your arm please.” When she does, he begins tentatively pressing upon her chi points. “Would you like me to share my theory now or would you like me to wait until after we our finished with our massage session.”

“Tell me now.” Azula replies, feeling a soft flutter in her tummy. She doesn’t think that she should be anxious to hear what he has to say. If anything she should be elated to have some mystery cleared. 

“Dr. Yu-Kang has mentioned The Vine Research Facility, yes?”

Azula nods. 

“I used to be a member of that institute.” He confesses. “And then I had a...disagreement with them over some of their proposed methods of study. I am inclined to believe that they have put those methods into action.” He pauses as he works on what she imagines is a particularly stubborn kink in her chi network. 

“When I was there, they had two goals in mind. One that studies the use of spirit vines to transfer bending types so that a person may wield two or even three elements. The other goal is to make use of the vines for feats such as mind control.” He says. “You have peculiar bending abilities and I believe that they were drawn to that.” 

Azula flexes her free hand. “Why did they need to steal my memories for that?”

“Generally speaking, they aim to extract memories in order to make the mind susceptible to mind control. But with yourself the focus was on transferring bending. I suspect that they have tampered with your memories to keep you docile, being as you have a...stubborn temperament.” He explains. “I also suspect that they had a side project in mind for you, one that involved using the vines to alter your personality. If they can manipulate a mind as sharp as yours, then anyone else will be easy pickings.” 

Once more, Azula’s stomach turns at the thought of them molding her mind to their liking and at the invasiveness of the procedures happening at all.

“If they have had any success with you then there might be an earthbender out there who can bend fire as well.” 

“Are they trying to create another Avatar?” Sokka sputters. 

“In some manner of speaking.” Dr. Phang confirms. “They have not yet gotten their hands on the actual Avatar so air isn’t an element they will have success with.” He sets her arm down and she holds out the other. 

“These scars are consistent with those found on people who have come to me for surgery on damaged chi points. Such operations have since been put out of practice now that we have waterbending on our side--much less invasive.” He notes. “In other words, the people behind this are not from the poles though they have a hidden base there.”

Azula hears Dr. Yu-Kang scoff in the corner. “To think that we wasted so much time searching in the caverns beneath Lake Laogai.” 

“If you were looking for them, then why wasn’t Zuko informed?” Sokka cuts in. 

“Because they didn’t want to get in trouble for negligence and incompetence.” Azula answers for her. “It was easier for them to let him think that I ran away.”

“We wanted a chance to...get things under control before troubling the Fire Lord.” Dr. Yu-Kang justifies. Though Azula sees it as little more than an excuse. “Given what we know now, I understand that this was a mistake.” 

Azula bites her tongue, deciding that she will save this admission for a time when it might suit her more to bring it up. Instead she waves her hand dismissively and inquires, “speaking of negligence; how is it that I ended up in their captivity?”

Dr. Phang sets her arm down and looks to Dr. Yu-Kang.

“I suspect that someone here might have ties with The Vine Research Facility. The woman who had been in charge of your transfer from this institution to our sister location has since fled.”

“And who was in charge of that?”

**.oOo.**

Sokka can’t the shiver from running up and down his spine. She is speaking so matter-of-factly and so firmly. Now that both of her hands are free she holds them clasped in her lap. She sits rigidly and with one leg crossed atop the other. He can’t help but think of the apathetic princess she’d been before her flight into the Forgetful Valley. 

“It was Yion, princess.” Dr. Yu-Kang replies. 

Sokka notices the furrowing of Azula’s brows. “Yion?” 

“She would have had no reason to flee if she weren’t involved.” Dr. Yu-Kang replied. “She was a nice girl, I wouldn’t have guessed…”

“Clearly.” Azula replies dryly. 

Again Sokka finds himself unsettled. Directed at him or not, he doesn’t enjoy seeing this side of her. “You’re not going to arrest her, are you?” He nods at Dr. Yu-Kang.

She quirks one of her brows. “Do you think that I should?”

“What!? No! I just…nevermind.”

She holds her gaze and he knows that she will grip the subject just as tightly until he elaborates. 

“I was worried that you would see her carelessness as an act of treason or something…” He stuffs his hands into his pockets. It sounds ridiculous out loud, but from what he has heard, she has arrested people for lesser crimes. 

“Perhaps I’ll have Yion arrested for that.” Azula shrugs. “Incompetence isn’t exactly a crime. Though it ought to be.” 

Sokka flinches. 

“What?” 

“What?” He returns the question. 

“You’re making ridiculous faces and I don’t like them.” 

He almost laughs at the sheer seriousness in her tone over something so mundane. “It’s just that…” he pauses. “Sometimes you do and say things that remind me of...of...you.” He twiddles his thumbs in his pockets as he clarifies, “the old you.” 

Azula sighs. “We’re not discussing that right now, Sokka.” 

“I know.” He mumbles. 

“And for the record, I won’t be changing my tone to accomodate you.”

But whether she means to or not, she does. When she addresses Dr. Yu-Kang again, it has less of an edge. “How do you propose Yion managed?” 

“She has been responsible for the safe escort of hundreds of patients over the past ten years. We had no reason to believe that she would form a connection to a more unethical institution. With her having been with us so long we have trusted her with our institution’s logistics.” Dr. Yu-Kang explains. “When she informed me that she had a ship ready for your transfer, I had no reason to suspect that it wouldn’t be enroute to anywhere but our sister facility.” 

“Do you not verify these things?”

“We do. Yion isn’t a foolish woman.” Dr. Yu-Kang notes. “She introduced me to the ship captain. He had documentation and identification. I am now under the impression that these were fake.”

Azula nods. 

“It was, as I see now, regrettably easy for her to pull this off. I understand how she managed to do it, I just struggle to figure out why--after so much time--Yion would dishonor us so greatly. It is truly embarrassing. I have been working with her for a very long time...”

“It is incredibly easy for people you are close to, to betray you.”

It isn’t directed at him, she doesn’t even give him a pointed glare. And yet he applies the remark to himself.    
  


“In any case, The Fire Lake Institute is ready to go to great lengths to make this right. If there is anything we can do to accomodate you until your brother arrives, let me know. Since your admission here was planned, we have no reason to keep you confined to your room. You are free to enter and exit at your leisure. Explore the island if you will. We will send for you when your brother makes it.” 

“The gesture is appreciated.” Azula says. “Of course, we will have to discuss new protocol for future transfers.”

“Naturally.” Dr. Yu-Kang agrees. “I will leave you and Dr. Phang to the rest of your session.” She makes her way to the door and pauses in the frame. “And if you find that you need to speak with someone about everything you have gone through, I am still your therapist and I am still prepared to do my job.” 

“I will consider.” Azula replies. 

“It could help with your nightmares, to talk about it.” Sokka suggests when the woman exits. 

Azula shrugs as she lays back. 

Dr. Phang hands her a bundle of clothing, her own, Sokka notes, not the asylum garments. “I’m going to need you to change back into these.” 

Sokka turns away from her and waits for her to mention that she is fully clothed again before turning back around. He watches her lay back down again. Dr. Phang lifts her shirt enough to examine her torso. “Much of the damage to your chi is central to your stomach chakra. Which isn’t surprising considering that, that is where the fire chakra resides.” He begins working to unblock the chi-points around it. “I might have to bring a waterbender in to work with that one.” 

Azula’s posture seems to relax again and, consequently, he relaxes. Sokka decides that, overall, the discussion has made him feel better about her. She isn’t so ruthless and unforgiving. He takes her hand again. 

**.oOo.**

“Did I bother you today?” Azula finally brings herself to ask.

“No!” Sokka responds too quickly.

She fixes him a deadpan stare and a raised brow. 

“Okay, yeah, a little. But only for a moment.” He answers. 

It relives her more than she had anticipated to hear that she doesn’t absolutely terrify him. She makes herself comfortable on the bed. It isn’t as comfortable as the one in the palace, but it is sleepable. “Good.”

“Good as in, I’m glad that you’re not afraid? Or good as in, I’m glad you were afraid?”

Azula laughs. “Both. I am, apparently, a very good firebender; you should have a healthy dose of fear of me. But I am glad that you aren’t off-put.” 

He chuckles too. “You’re something else. I mean I already knew that, but now that I’m talking to you…” 

“Lay down.” She pats the side of the bed next to her. 

“Right there?” 

“Right there.” 

“That close?” 

“Sokka, two people can lay just next to each other, yes?” She asks. “It helps me sleep better to have someone near.” She doesn’t mention that it is he specifically that keeps the nightmares at bay.

“Alright.” He mutters as he lays himself down next to her. 

“I’ll see you in the morning?” 

“Unless you leave, yes.” 

“I’m not leaving.” 

Azula smiles. “Good night, Sokka.”


	21. Vivid Blue

At some point in the night he had managed to wrap himself around Azula. The princess, he finds, is a surprisingly heavy sleeper when sleep finally does find her. For the better part of the night she had kept him up with her tossing and turning and blanket yanking. Eventually he had given up and let her steal the whole blanket, he couldn’t exactly argue with, “I’m a firebender, I require more warmth.” 

And when she finally did get comfortable enough to sink into slumber, she had found a new way to keep him up. He wouldn’t have taken her for a sleep talker if she hadn’t started doing it. Her sleepy babble mostly consisted of incoherent chatter with a sprinkle of words like ‘dragon’ and ‘you fool.’ 

At one point she had rolled over, her hand flopping clumsily onto his face. He recalls having grumbled a, “hey, watch it.” To which she replied, “no, you.” 

“But you’re the one who dropped your hand on my face!” 

“Your face attached itself to my…” and then what he guessed was ‘hand’. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Even while it was happening, he knew that it was ridiculous to argue with someone who wasn’t even awake. With morning flooding through the windows, he realizes just how truly correct that was. Because after that she had responded to him with something akin to, “your hand can’t even hand correctly…” incoherent muttering, “...and waterbenders are just wet firebenders anyways.” 

He goes to untangle himself from her but she only grips him tighter as though he is some sort of stuffed animal. She rubs her face against his chest and gives another sleepy mutter. Sokka sighs and resigns himself to letting her hold him while he prepares himself for a truly awkward conversation. 

He pats her back a few times before trying to will himself back to sleep until she wakes up. But he finds that he can’t. Not when she has her head resting on his chest; however innocent it is, he can’t help but feel...strange about it. 

And yet, he thinks that he might enjoy it. She isn’t so intimidating when she’s asleep.

At last she seems to stir more deliberately and her eyes open. He expects her to jerk away with a reddened face. He is half right; her face flushes some but she doesn’t rush to put distance between the two of them. With the grace and poise that he is used to seeing from her, she unwraps herself from around him.

“You slept well.” He remarks. 

Now she jolts. “You’re already awake?”

“I’ve been awake for about an hour.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because you were finally sleeping peacefully. And I kind of wanted to hear more about intellectual hippo-cows.”

  
She scrunches her brows, “what?” 

“You talk in your sleep.” He shrugs. 

“I do not.” 

“You had a…” he wouldn’t exactly call it ‘whole’, “you hand an argument with me.” 

“Did I win it?” 

He thinks for a moment. “You did get the last word in.”

“Perhaps I do talk in my sleep.” 

Sokka watches her rise from the bed and stretch her arms. Overall, she seems to be in better spirits now that she is well rested and with her chi fully unblocked. She sits back down on the bed. 

“I’m assuming that I shouldn’t mention this morning to Zuko?”

Azula tilts her head. “You’re making a big deal over nothing. You were helping me get to sleep and I…” she thinks for a minute, “am capable of doing many things even while I am sleeping.” 

He finds it more impressive that she can so expertly make things sound less awkward than they were. 

But for as awkward as it had been, he can’t help but decide that it had also been rather pleasant. “I’m glad that you’re not mad at me anymore. For a while I thought that I ruined everything.” 

**.oOo.**

“Yes, I’m glad too.” She pauses. “This would be a lot harder to manage without you here.” She admits. “I didn’t think that I was going to get much support…” She didn’t think that she would get any at all. But she is thankful for it, much more than she has said. She had been alone and in pain for so long and for the most part he has given her nothing but company and soothing. She likes to think that the worst of it is over now. “I was hoping to do some firebending today, if you’d like to join me.”

“I’m a nonbender.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know that. You can still come out with me.” 

“I can do that.” He agrees. 

It is nice to find herself outside once again with the sun beating on her skin. Azula lets it seep into her until she can feel it pulsating in her fire chakra. She thinks that she should start with a stance and a deep breath. So she finds a comfortable one, though she isn’t quite sure if it is proper form, and inhales. 

She glances over at Sokka who gives her a thumbs up. 

Azula lets the first flame burst into her palm, a test run. For a while she only stares at the fire dancing in her grasp, mesmerized by its sapphire brilliance. She has never seen a fire with such an eerie cool hue. And yet it feels most appropriate. To think that they have managed to cut her off from it…

She lets the flame dance until Sokka speaks, “you okay over there?”

She nods. “Perfectly fine.” Better than fine, really, she is absolutely exhilarated. She moves into her first kata and second and then her third. It is a slow beginning, one where she is content to just watch the arc of her fire as it hangs blue in the air before turning orange and dissipating in a trail of smoke. 

Her next few moves are a more rapid repetitions of her first three. She finds that she is alarmingly fast, much faster than she had anticipated, much faster than she had been when she had tried to flee the palace. Breathing and agility seem to come much easier now. She supposes that unblocked chi, three meals a day, and a full night’s rest are helpful things. 

Feeling much bolder about her abilities, having success thus far, Azula decides that she will try something new. She takes something of a running start and propels herself up and into a windmill of fire. She lands it with only the slightest stumble, she hopes that Sokka hadn’t noticed. 

She isn’t quite sure if she is just making it all up as she goes along or if it is muscle memory at work. 

She takes a moment of rest, not particularly because she is tired but because she is curious as to what Sokka makes of her display. 

“Wow…” Sokka trails off. “Looks like you still remember how to firebend.” 

She takes a seat next to him. “Not exactly, I…” she trails off as she tries to make sense of it for herself. “It’s more like an instinct, I think.”

He shrugs, “Zuko mentioned that you are a prodigy, several times, in the form of a complaint.” 

“I wish I knew that when I was trying to get away from you.” 

“I’m glad that you didn’t.” Sokka disagrees. “If you did you’d probably be in the Earth Kingdom right now, cleaning docks.” 

“I was going to be a tradesman.” Azula folds her arms over her chest. “And then work my way up to being a soldier of sorts.” 

At this, Sokka seems to cringe. She sighs, she truly is dreadful at telling jokes. 

“I think that you’ve seen enough war.”

“But I haven’t seen any at all.” She points out. 

This time his smile is a sad one. “Sometimes I think that you’re the lucky one here. I told you that you were a killer, but I don’t think I mentioned that I killed someone too.”

Azula reflexively tenses up. 

“Your brother sent him to kill Aang.” 

She laughs, her stomach flutters upon recalling that laughing is highly out of place. But she can’t quite help it. “Isn’t Aang the one I killed.”

After cringing, Sokka replies, “yeah.”

“Guess it’s a family hobby.” This time she is sure that her tone is light but Sokka still seems to wince. 

“You have no idea…” 

Azula falls silent and looks at her hands. He doesn’t resume his story and her stomach sinks further. When the silence becomes intolerable she prompts, “you were telling me about the man you killed…”

He flinches again and this time Azula nearly does too. She supposes that she should work on when to be blunt and when to be subtle. 

“Nevermind.” He replies glumly. 

“Okay.” She gets to her feet. 

And to think that the day had begun so well. 

She looks to the Fire Lake main building, at least she has a team of therapists about.


	22. Here When You Wake

Azula pulls on a sleep robe. It is slightly too large for her petite frame, but it is the best that the institution could do given that she had made her appearance on such short notice. She wants to have them send for her clothes, but Zuko will be there tomorrow so there wouldn’t be much of a point. 

It isn’t like she will be sleeping easy anyways. 

She sighs to herself and begins tucking herself under the covers, all the while preparing herself for the nightmares to come. She wraps herself up in the blankets as tightly as she possibly can, as though that will protect her from the cold in her dreams. With a flick of her wrist, the candle’s flame is out.

She stares at it as she waits for sleep to take her. 

But hours later, she finds that it never does. She thinks that she might be thankful for it. She’d rather have a sleepless night than one where she is forced back into that icy room. Her anxious musings are put to a merciful halt by a knock at her door. Perhaps she should let the nurse know that she is having trouble sleeping. 

She hastily untangles the blankets and opens the door. “Sokka?” 

**.oOo.**

Somehow she looks so small standing there in the doorframe. Small and sad. She rubs at her eyes.

“You still want someone to stay in the room with you?” He holds out his pillows and blankets. 

He thinks that he catches a hint of a smile. She steps out of the way and motions for him to enter. 

“Are you here to finish your story? I’ll quiet down and listen to it this time.” She mutters. 

“I was actually here to check on you.” 

“You don’t trust me with the story.”

Sokka rubs his hand over his face. “I just don’t feel like telling it right now. Tomorrow, okay?”

She fixes him with a very subtle pout. “Fine.” He watches her crawl back onto the bed and roll to face away from him. 

_ Here we go again _ , he thinks to himself. When she wants a tale she gets really persistent about it. He isn’t sure which question is more pressing in his mind so he just asks them both; “why do you think I don’t trust you? And you’re angry with me again aren’t you?” 

“No, you’re angry at me.” 

“I’m not, I promise.” He insists. “I wouldn’t be here if I was.” He says it but he isn’t sure himself if it is true. “Why would I be angry?” 

“Because I make blunt and offhanded remarks.” 

He chuckles, she certainly isn’t wrong. Punctuating those by laughing at inappropriate times, she is quite a social disaster. “Yeah, you do, do that.” He pauses. “But, believe it or not, I know that you didn’t mean anything by them.” It occurs to him rather suddenly, that he is beginning to get a feel for Azula and her mannerisms. Which, if he must say, is no easy feat.

She rolls back around to face him and a kind wave of reassurance sets in. “So you will finish your story?” 

“It’s getting late, you’re barely keeping your eyes open.” 

“Wonderful, perhaps a bedtime story will finish the job.” 

He groans. “You are irritatingly stubborn.” 

“Diligence is key when trying to accomplish any task.” 

“Not everything is some big mission.” He rolls his eyes. 

“It doesn’t have to be, no, if you will just…”

He presses a finger to her lips. “Shh. It’s time to sleep.” He takes the covers and pulls them up to her chin, ignoring her cutting glare. He lays his pillows, this time putting one between them so she’ll have something else to cling to. He spreads his blanket out, but somehow he gets the feeling that she will end up snatching it.

“You...how dare you?” She sputters. 

This time his laughter almost has him in tears. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

**.oOo.**

_ She sees her body, but only as an outline on a black backdrop. It is pulsating with silvery, shimmering, spider webbing veins.Every now and again a few much brighter beads shoot off and roll down the thin veins like dew down a blade of grass or some sort of electrical charge.  _

_ The beads of light travel all about her body, but mostly travel to her hands, her chest, and her stomach. Her stomach where the light doesn’t pulse silver-white, but a burning blue. It is so vivid and it beckons her to it. She wants nothing more than to touch the fair-sized ball of light. But she finds that she can’t move at all, she is as tethered as the outline of her body is. _

__

_ She watches from above as something comes down, it buries itself in her belly and burrows towards that glowing orb. It slices vertically and then disappears.  _

_ Something new, several somethings, take its place. They yank and pull until the sphere comes loose; the pulsating veins grow fainter and weaker until they completely darken. All except for the soft orange-yellow glow dashed with brown. It beats in her chest but she thinks that it is curiously dimmer.  _

_ She feels a tug upon her soul and her world grows more and more solid as she is pulled closer to what was once only an outline of a body. By the time she is thrust into it, the world is whole and physical.  _

_ They loom over her with featureless heads, like unfinished portraits that have yet to gain faces. They speak to her but their sound is indistinguishable. More so with the pain that slices through her abdomen. Her, gaping, gushing abdomen.  _

_ She tries to sit up but the binds dig into her wrists, hips, and ankles. They hold up that luminescent orb, it looks so much smaller in their hands.  _

_ She isn’t sure exactly what it is, but they have taken it from her and she wants it back.  _

_ She wants it back.  _

_ She wants it back.  _

_ She wants it back.  _

_ She wants... _

**.oOo.**

Azula whimpers softly to herself. Sokka hates the sound of it. Her breathing seems to quicken and his heart seizes. This is the first time that she has had a nightmare while in his company. 

He doesn’t know if he should wake her or leave her to weather the storm. 

Her hands curl around the blankets and she gives another soft cry. One that is almost angry. 

He rubs her arm, light little strokes until she seems to grow less tense. The relief is passing. Her anguish comes back but with a much higher intensity. 

He hopes that she will wake herself. 

Instead she thrashes about, a few tears running down her cheeks. 

He holds his breath and waits for it to pass. But it doesn’t, not entirely. She has stopped thrashing but she still cries softly. 

This time when he holds her, it is on purpose. He has forgotten about the pillow he’d placed between them, but the gesture alone seems to calm her, if only a little. He rests his head on hers and her crying slows. 

Her hand snakes over the pillow, she still has something just short of a death grip on the fabric. He gently pats her back with the hand that he has slung over her. The other rests on the back of her head, holding her forehead to his.

His eyes go wide and takes a sharp breath;  _ what is he doing!? _ He begins to retract his hand. 

“Sokka?” 

He almost swears. 

Anxiety claws at his belly as her eyes narrow in confusion. 

“S-Sorry,” he stutters, “you were having a nightmare and I was just trying to help.” He hastens the retracting of his hand but she catches it by the wrist and pulls it back around her. 

She tries to snuggle closer, makes a face, and tosses the pillow between them to the side. He feels her arms come around him and she closes her eyes again. 

He finds himself wondering if it is a good idea to get so affectionate with her. He considers, for the first time in a while, a situation where she gets her memories back and completely forsakes everything he has done to help her. Forsakes it and slips back into her old, unkind habits. 

She clutches the fabric of his shirt and presses her cheek against his chest and the worry leaves his mind. 

He resumes patting her on the back and stroking her hair. 

**.oOo.**

Azula doesn’t particularly want to try sleeping again. She wipes at her eyes, she almost hadn’t noticed that they were teary. “Was I...crying?” She cringes. 

“A little, yeah.” He says. 

“Fantastic…” she mutters. 

“It’s alright, you’ve been through a lot, you can cry sometimes.” 

“You can cry, I’ll pass if I can help it.” 

“Of course you will.” He chuckles. 

She readjusts the position of her head and closes her eyes. “Thank you for staying with me, Sokka.” 

“Clearly I’m not really much help.” He gives an awkward laugh. 

“You are. You’re a lot of help.” More help then she ever thought that she’d get. It is terribly nice to know that she won’t wake up alone when the nightmares do come. She think that the night is still early, perhaps she may get some sleep in. Even if she falls into another nightmare, she supposes that it isn’t so bad. She tightens her hold on Sokka. 

“Glad that you think so.” 

“Good night, Sokka.” 

“Because I was starting to think that I was just being annoying.” 

“You are.” She smiles. “You talk too much.” 

“Hey!” 

She presses her finger to his lips. “Shut up.” 

“Okay, I was a lot nicer than…” 

“I’m just joking.” She nuzzles her head closer. “Keep talking, I’m sure you’ll find something boring enough to have me sleeping again.” 

“How would you like to learn about the different types of seaweeds you can use in a seaweed stew?”

“That sounds horrendously unentertaining.” 

“Great, so the most common type of to use in a good seaweed stew is lightly salted wakame.” 


	23. Sparks

The air is rich with the scent of fire lily and ocean spray. Azula sits herself upon a large rock and kicks her feet at the water. Zuko should be there within the hour and she wants to get things moving, they have been idle for too long for her liking. 

“Still want to hear that story?” Sokka asks as he leans himself against the rock. 

She nods, “I wanted to hear it last night.”

Last night…

It had been pleasant, all things considered. He has has arms folded across his chest. Memories between nightmares and the next morning are always rather fuzzy and distant, but she vividly remembers those arms folding around her. 

She feels like she ought to be flustered or weary but she isn’t. Not at all, in fact. 

She steals a glance up at him, studying his face as she awaits his recant. He has a pleasant enough face, she supposes. He is a little scruffy, but charmingly so. She supposes that keeping him up all night with her night terrors doesn’t exactly help him keep the scraggles out of his hair and the tiredness out of his eyes. 

He looks doubly exhausted now. 

“You don’t have to share it if…”   
  


“No.” He replies. “I want to. I just don’t know how to start.”

“The same way you did last time?” 

He shakes his head. 

“You told me that my brother sent him to kill the Avatar?” She prompts.This time she takes care not to make a joke of it.

He nods, “yeah, your brother was trying to capture the Avatar and...that’s a very long story. The point is, the guy, he was after us and he was terrifying.” 

“Why?”

“He could explode things with his mind!” 

“Imagine if I could do that.” She nudges him. “I could cause a whole new world of terror.” She hopes that her joke is in better taste this time. It must be, because he gives the slightest hint of a smile. 

“Well, this guy was trying to kill all of us and so I threw my boomerang…”

“Your...boomerang?”

“Oh yeah! I never showed you boomerang! I mean I have...I hit you with boomerang once, but you don’t remember that.” He reaches behind him and comes back with a small boomerang. “Its really useful!”

Azula reaches out to touch it but he yanks it away. ‘Sorry!” He says quickly. “I just don’t let anyone touch boomerang.” 

Azula rolls her eyes, but even as she does so he holds it out to her. “Okay, you can touch it, but that’s it, no holding, just touching.” She rolls her eyes once more and holds her hand atop its metal surface. “Glorious isn’t it.”

“It’s nice.” She quirks a brow, somehow he gets the message; “oh, right, the story!” He says. 

It almost unsettles her that he has so quickly picked up her non-verbal cue.

“So that guy, I just called him Sparky Sparky Boom Man, he had this tattoo of an eye on his forehead. And as he was...powering it up for one of his explosions, I threw my boomerang at him. It hit him on that third eye. He still tried to do his sparky boom thing and...uh...it didn’t work out.” 

“In other words, it’s not your fault, he did it to himself.” Azula shrugs. 

“But I still feel like it is my fault. If I hadn’t thrown my boomerang he would…”

“Have killed your friends and then you’d blame yourself for that.” She pauses. “Wouldn’t that have been much harder to live with?”

“And that’s what I was saying the other day when I said that sometimes I think that you’re the lucky one.” 

She can’t help but to agree, once again she almost feels blessed to have had her mind cleansed. She isn’t particularly sure exactly what she had seen during the war, what she had done, but she finds herself thinking that she doesn't want to know.

“You did what you had to do, Sokka.” She says.”You’re a man who knows what needs to be done and you know when to stop holding back.”

“Maybe.” He frowns. “But murder is still murder...we were just kids…” 

“You did that so your little sister wouldn’t have to.” She tries. 

He gives an even subtler smile than the one before. “I’d rather be the one to think about this than let her. 

Azula nods. 

“But I still think about it a lot. He was a human being and now he’s...he’s nothing at all. And it’s my fault.”

Azula sighs more to herself as she thinks it over. “That man might be dead because of you, but there are at least four others who are alive because of you.” She gives him a firm pat on the chest and lets herself slide off of the rock. “I think that, that holds a little more value.” She gives him a small peck on the cheek. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka flushes, his eyes rather wide. He opens his mouth to sputter a response

“Look, Zuzu’s here.” She points to the ship pulling into the dock. 

“Ye-yeah, we should probably head over there then.” 

He gives a small jolt when she grabs his hand and hustles him towards the pier as though nothing has happened at all. His head spins and he isn’t sure if she is even aware of what she has just done; she never has been particularly good with social implications. 

Holding her had been one thing, but a kiss, however innocent, is another. He isn’t even sure how innocent it had been.Yet he can’t say that he hadn’t enjoyed the surprise. For certain, he can know that Zuko shouldn’t hear about it. 

His ship hasn’t quite docked yet by the time they arrive. 

“Thank you for sharing your story with me.” 

“Why are you thanking me?” 

She shrugs. “As far as I know, you’re the only person who has ever...trusted me? To talk about something like that. 

“Yeah, anytime.” He replies. He just hopes that he can trust her to talk with him about that kiss. 


	24. The Makes Of A Plan

This boat ride is significantly more pleasant than the trip to the island. This time she is unbound and free to roam the ship as she pleases. She thinks that this might possibly be the first pleasant experience that she has had on a boat. For the time being, she is the only one awake. Supposedly, firebenders are early to rise, but the sun hasn’t yet risen. She hopes that Sokka won’t be too disappointed to find himself alone in the room. It had simply become too stuffy in there for her; Azula has come to decide that she doesn’t have a particular love for cramped spaces. Looking out at the open ocean, she decides that she isn’t very fond of vast spaces either. The lapping waves remind her too much of the rolling hills of snow but with white traded for blue. 

She has to admit, for as nerve wracking as it is, it is pretty. The reflection of the deep indigo of early morning. A tinge of sunlight gold, puts a glimmer in the water. If the boat weren’t rocking so heavily, Azula would lean against the rail and peer into the depths. 

In her head she runs over a list of tasks to be done, though there isn’t much that she can complete when confined to a boat in the middle of the ocean. She has already told Zuko of the organization and--just in case it hadn’t been brought up in Yu-Kang’s promised council meeting, Sokka has informed him of Jeong Jeong’s fate. Azula has also declared that they should have a second meeting to discuss the Vine Research Facility and their possible whereabouts. 

Today’s agenda will mostly consist of laying down a full and sturdy plan, she has the basic makings of one already, but she should like to fine tune them. Ideally the Fire Nation’s military will scope out the tundra for the facility and storm it. They will collect research notes and she will use them to make her mind whole again. 

“So...are we going to tell Zuko about, you know…?” 

Azula jolts. Telling Zuko about how close she had let herself grow to Sokka is most certainly not on her list of tasks. “Why should we?” She isn’t sure that it is anything noteworthy enough to share at all. One small and rather impulsive peck on the cheek isn’t much to fuss over. 

“I don’t know, because he’s your brother.” 

“Yes, exactly.” Azula replies. “There isn’t much to tell anyhow.” Deciding that she has someone to keep the boat from pitching her overboard, she leans back against the railing.

“I’d want to know if my sister was kissing someone!”

Azula rolls her eyes. “So you can what, wave your boomerang in their face?”

“That’s right!” He declares boldly. He is spirited, she’ll give him that. 

“It was one small kiss, Sokka.” She shrugs. She isn’t sure if it could even be called a kiss. “It isn’t anything noteworthy. Now quiet down and watch with me.” She turns around to face the sunrise and pats the rail next to her.

Sokka sighs audibly and comes to stand next to her, dangling his arms over the banister. She notices that he has taken the time to trim and sculpt his formerly scraggly beard. He smells like the ocean spray. 

**.oOo.**

All in all, the princess looks rather happy. At the very least, she looks tranquil. The gold of the rising sun gives her face a certain radiance. She hasn’t yet combed her hair nor put on her makeup. He still isn’t used to seeing her anything less than perfectly groomed.

“It isn’t anything noteworthy at all?” He quirks a brow. 

Deep down, he hopes that she will ask him if he wants it to be. Instead she, almost too cheerfully, replies, “nope, not particularly.” Somehow, he is also relieved. Simple. It is much simpler this way. 

He tells himself that he still loves Suki. That when he gets a chance, he will try to rekindle things with her. That he will assure her that they can make time for each other no matter how much effort it takes. 

“Are you alright?” Azula asks. 

“Just thinking.” He replies. 

“About?”

“Just...what I’m going to do when this is all over.” 

**.oOo.**

“Did they treat you well?” Zuko asks in between forkfuls of dumplings. 

“Well enough.” Azula replies. All things considered, she had been kept rather comfortable. But then, her standards have lowered significantly as far as institutions go. “How are things at home?” She can’t quite bring herself to ask if the others have mentioned her at all. 

“Hectic.” Zuko replies. “With Jeong Jeong and Chan dead and you going missing for so long, people are starting to get scared. The nobles anyways. I’ve got all of the imperial firebenders on full alert but that isn’t helping much.” 

“I’m sure that they’ll feel better once we establish a solid plan. Rather, once you agree to my plan.”

“You already have a plan?” He asks. “I shouldn’t be surprised.” He adds with a laugh.

“Was I good at planning things?”

“You were, like, a mastermind!” Sokka interrupts. “It was kind of your thing. And mine, I was the idea guy of my group too. So it was interesting trying to out plan you.”

“Failing to out plan me.” She corrects. “Anyhow, it’s isn’t a complete plan but it is a start. I know that I was held in the Southern Water Tribe and I was in a compound close enough to the village to survive a blizzard. Though, I presume that the Vine Research Facility has probably vacated it by now, unless they have assumed that I’d gotten myself killed.” 

“So we might have surprise on our side?” Zuko inquires. 

Azula nods, “perhaps, if they haven’t relocated. So we will have a team comb the tundra for the facility when the weather is stable enough. Dr. Yu-Kang mentioned a Lake Laogai, we will also search there. And we should try to find the place where they harvest their spirit vines from, they probably frequent the place.”

“The Foggy Swamp.” Sokka puts in. When she shoots him a questioning look he adds. “There’s this banyan tree and its roots, they do all kinds of crazy things. They can make you hallucinate and they can mess with your chi.”

“Well then we should probably send a team to the Foggy Swamp as well.” Azula declares. “With luck we can uncover their research notes; we can put a stop to whatever they plan on using their findings for and I can get my memories back.” She folds her hands atop the table. “It’s simple really.” Simple save for that she still isn’t sure that her memories will benefit her at all anymore. 

She tries not to dwell much on the possibility of scrambling her mind even further or erasing her new memories. And these memories are ones that she shouldn’t like to lose. 

“I think that, that sounds manageable.” Zuko replies. 

“Good.” She nods. “I am hoping to get things in motion as soon as we get back.”

“You really want your memories back.” Sokka mutters. 

“I really want to see that organization disassembled.” She clarifies. The sooner she can be rid of them, the sooner much of her anxiety will be alleviated. “I’d like to shut them down before they have another shot at me.”

She catches Zuko staring at the scars on her arms, his lips press into a thin line. “Yeah, I’d like to keep that from happening too.” She catches a twinge of fury in his soft golden eyes. “Trust me, they won’t have a second chance.”

She doesn’t doubt his sincerity. The sheer seething in his eyes when she’d first showed him the scars had been almost palpable. She very nearly covered them up again on the spot. Now he looks at her with pity. She doesn’t particularly like this, it makes her feel somehow helpless. “I’m fine.” She mutters. “You don’t need to look at me like that.” 

He chuckles. “Sorry, I forgot that you don’t like that.”

Azula finishes her platter of dumplings and pushes it to the side. “Don’t worry about it.” She stands and pushes her chair in. “I’d like to get some sleep in before we begin tomorrow.” As she passes Sokka, she gives his hand a light tug. 

“But I’m not done eating!” 

She rolls her eyes, “you’re never done eating.”

“What do you need Sokka for?” 

“I have trouble sleeping, sometimes Sokka stays in my room with me.” Though, lately, sometimes has become all the time. 

“Fine.” He grumbles and pushes his dumplings aside. 

She makes Sokka wait outside while she slips into her silk night robes. She gives a satisfied sigh as she smooths her hands over the fabric. This fits her much better than the institution attire. It doesn’t drag and bury her in its excess cloth. She revels in its comforts for a moment longer before beckoning Sokka inside. 

She might just get some decent sleep tonight if she can ignore the rocking and undulating of the ship. 

**.oOo.**

Once again, he watches the princess tuck herself in. He hopes that tonight will be nightmare free. Just maybe she is cozy enough to sleep through the night, she sure looks it. He arranges his pillows and blankets on the chair. 

Azula’s brows knit. “Why are you all the way over there?”

“Your brother will kick my ass if he catches me in bed with you, clothes or no clothes.” He expects her to crinkle her nose, like she always does when he says something stupid, at the notion of them laying in bed with no clothes. But she doesn’t phased by it at all. She simply pats the spot next to her as she always does. “Alright, I’m coming.” 

She gives a delighted little grin and makes room for him. It is becoming routine now, and he thinks that he also sleeps better with company. For the better part of the night they lay facing away from each other. Eventually he rolls to face her and later she shifts to face him. 

And when she thinks that he is asleep, she slides her hand over his and intertwines their fingers.


	25. I Need Them

They are on another boat almost immediately after leaving the first. Azula is beginning to think that the majority of her life has been spent on boats. When she had said that she wanted to get things moving right away, she hadn’t expected Zuko to call a meeting within the hour of their homecoming. She certainly hadn’t anticipated it to conclude so quickly and with new plans for stricter and lengthier patrols and a promise for a deeper search for anyone with a connection to the Vine Research Facility. She had only a night in her own bed and then she was packing again. Not that she isn’t pleased that things are moving so quickly. 

Even still, she is just about as apprehensive as Katara is thrilled to be venturing back into the relentless frigidness of the poles. She wishes that she can be on the boat head for the Earth Kingdom and Lake Laogai. She has only just begun to truly appreciate the Fire Nation sun on her skin and she is straying from it once more. 

Her phantom finger tingles at the thought of a reunion with the nippy winds. 

Azula sits on deck watching her homeland fade into a speck on the horizon. “Maybe I can heal those for you.” Katara gestures to the scars. “If we have some time, there’s this spirit oasis in the north…”

“No!” Azula says much too quickly. “I’d rather not leave one freezing place for another.” She brushes her fingers over the lightly raised skin. “I don’t mind them anyways. I hadn’t even noticed they were there for a while.” She shrugs. She doubts that Katara would have if she hadn’t made a show and tell of them at the council meeting. 

“Are you sure?”

Azula nods, “I think that they suit me.” 

“I can’t disagree there.” Zuko props himself up against the banister. 

“Have you and Sokka been getting along?” Katara asks. “He mentioned that you guys really patched things up at Fire Lake.”

“Yes.” Azula confirmed. “He has been very helpful.”

Katara smiles. “He’s been saying a lot of nice things about you to Aang and the others.” 

Azula returns the smile, though she is still somewhat nervous for the dinner time conversation. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka thinks that the only reason he has managed to get Azula out of her cabin and into galley is because he has linked his arm around hers and practically dragged her there. As he recalls, the last conversation that they all had together had been awkward. 

As expected, Azula sits rather quietly, only opening her mouth to taste the dish in front of her. He watches her crinkle her nose and mutter, “more sea food.” This time there are no alternatives so she forces herself to stomach it. He tries not to laugh at her assortment of appalled faces. “This is worse than your cooking.” She remarks on one occasion. 

“Gee, thanks.” Sokka grumbles. 

“Hey! Hey!” Toph bursts out. “Show me fire finger again!”

Azula blinks. 

“Come on! If you hold it close enough, I might be able to feel its shape.” 

“Alright, come over here then.” She gives a reflexive beckoning hand gesture. 

Toph springs up from her chair and waits for Azula to make good on her promise. The princess holds her hand just close enough to Toph for her to be able to feel the heat. “Sweet.” She chuckles as she makes her way back to her seat. 

“Getting more comfortable?” Sokka asks quietly. 

“A little, I suppose.” Azula replies. Though her posture suggests that she is still having some difficulty adjusting to so much company. 

“Tell them about how you escaped from the Vine Research Facility.” He suggests. 

“I’d rather not talk about that.” 

**.oOo.**

She’d rather not open that discussion, but she isn’t sure what else to say. Especially not to Mai who still seems to have a particular hatred of her. Sokka, Zuko, Katara, and Toph seem to welcome her, Aang doesn’t seem to mind her, and yet she still feels out of place. Like she is intruding in what would have been a tension free meal. 

“Sokka told me that I killed you?” She looks at Aang. Decidedly, this isn’t a great topic to be had over dinner. 

“Yeah.” He rubs the back of his head. “But I’m still here so...uh...yeah…”

“I don’t remember why I did that.” She says, feeling her cheeks begin to color. “But I suppose that I should apologize for that.” 

“That’s a good start.” Katara agrees. 

They all look at her and it occurs to her that she is actually supposed to do that now. Apparently just mentioning that it is appropriate to apologize won’t suffice. She clears her throat, “I’m sorry that I fully engulfed you in flames.” It is terribly hard to offer such when she doesn’t know precisely what she is apologizing for. 

“You used lighting, see.” He lifts his shirt. On his belly is a rough star shaped scar. Azula swallows. It is much too similar to the one she’d spied on Zuko earlier in the day when she’d caught him running through his firebending forms. 

“Did I...give those out a lot.” She gestures to the scar. 

“Not too often, just twice. As far as I know.” Aang replies. 

The relief must have shown on her face because he offers her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s healed now.” 

She thinks that he is being too nice. She doesn’t think that she would be able to let something like that go so easily. “I gave the second one to my brother, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah.” Katara answers. “It was scary to watch.” She wraps her arms around herself. 

Azula’s stomach lurches again. It is just one more thing to add to her growing list of unlikable traits and past misdeeds. She very nearly asks Sokka what is wrong with her. Instead she has another bite of turtle crab. Her face scrunches. Even a tense conversation can’t truly overpower her hatred of the dish. 

“I guess that, that’s why no one want to talk to me.” 

Sokka reaches under the table, takes her hand, and squeezes. “That’s not true, Toph and Katara are talking to you now.” 

“Azula, you did some scary stuff.” Katara cuts in. “Even if you don’t remember it, it’s really hard to…” 

_ To be around me, _ she finishes.

“...For  _ us _ to forget about it.” 

“Yes, I suppose that it would be.” She glumly admits. “You’re afraid that I’m going to do it again, yes?” She can’t say that she isn’t afraid of such. 

“Something like that.” Katara replies. 

“But we gave Zuko another chance, so we’re going to give you one too.” Aang beams.

For the first time during that dinner, her belly tickles with something other than anxiety and shame. She decides that it might be hope. “Thank you.” 

Sokka squeezes her hand again. 

Conversation is less tense from there; they talk more freely and about more mundane topics. About likes and dislikes and about hobbies and bending. There was a lighthearted debate about which element is the most superior. She was disappointed that Sokka’s ‘highly esteemed fifth element’, the element of surprise, took victory. She had even managed a pleasant conversation with TyLee about a mutual dislike of the approaching cold. 

And yet she still wandered back to her cabin with a sense of unease and a tinge of helplessness.

**.oOo.**

“Every time I hear more about my about myself, I like…me... less and less.” Sokka watches her drop herself onto her mattress. “Haven’t I done anything  _ good  _ for anyone?”

Sokka thinks for a moment. “That’s the funny thing about wars. One side looks worse than the other.” 

Azula fixes her golden gaze upon him. 

“There are a lot of people who think that you did good. I haven’t talked to many of them, but there are a bunch of generals and soldiers who probably think that you were a great leader. You were doing what you thought was a good thing for your nation.” 

The princess nods, seemingly satisfied with his explanation. “I suppose, yes…” 

“But…?”

“Everyone still looks at me like I’m going to either set this ship on fire at any moment or that I am going to set them on fire at any moment.” 

He nudges her, “you’re an intimidating person, is all.” 

She rubs her arm, “apparently not intimidating enough.” 

He slings an arm over her shoulder. “You love my nudging and my terrible jokes.” 

Azula sniffs hauntily. “Your jokes make me want to pitch myself overboard.” 

“More or less than having to eat turtle-crab?”

“More.” 

Sokka shrugs. “Look, I’m just saying that everyone still has to get used to you. It was easy for Zuko because he’s your brother. And it was easier for Katara because she saw you…” he almost says vulnerable, but decides that the princess wouldn’t take well to that word choice. “Because she saw you right after you got out of the tundra. She has a soft spot for people who get hurt like that.” He explains. “The others still need to get to know you,  _ this  _ you, better.”

**.oOo.**

“This me.” She mutters “But what about the old me. What’s going to happen when I get my memories back?” What happens with the old clashes with the new. When old rivalries and resentments meet new bonds and kind gestures. 

She anticipates confusion and turmoil. A maddeningly irresolvable inner conflict. She wonders which memories, which opinions and viewpoints will take precedence in her mind. 

“You’ll keep making progress, that’s what.” He answers quite boldly. “That’s what you’re good at, making progress and pushing forward. You’re still going to remember all of this.”

“But what if I decide that my old memories and opinions are more valuable to me. What if they’re more dominant?” 

“So what if they are?” He alters the question. “You’re more like the old you than you realize.” 

Her stomach lurches again. Once more, she is certain that her discomfort displays on her face. 

“That’s not a bad thing.” He smiles softly. “There were so many great things about the old you. You were...are resilient and determined and strong.” He pauses. “You’re confident and to the point and you’re smart and cunning.” 

“Keep going.” She prompts with a half smirk.

“And you don’t need any more ego stroking…” He trails off with a chuckle. “You were all of those things before and you still are, you just channel them differently than before.”

Azula clasps her hands over her belly as though that will steal away the nervous fluttering. “Yes, but if I get my memories back then I might decide to channel those things as I always have. I might get my memories back and decide that the things I hated about Zuko are more potent than the things I like about him now…”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to form really powerfully good memories now.” He shrugs. 

She stares at the ceiling, the boat lolls and rocks. She likes to think that all of her moments with Sokka will be enough to keep her soon to be inner conflict at bay. 

“Hey?”

“Yes, Sokka?”

“Do you even want your memories back?”

“Of course I do.” She replies. “I need them, they are mine and I am going to take back what is mine.” And yet she fears what is hers more than anything else in the world. Perhaps more deeply than she fears the merciless tundra. “I need to know who I was. I need them.”


	26. A Silent Trek

This time she is adequately prepared for an adventure. She is bundled up in a parka and buried within layers of clothing. Her mittens are free of holes and her boots are fitted right so that snow does not work its way into them. She also has a pair of snowshoes that keep her from getting stuck in the snowbanks. All in all, she is more prepared to enter and exit the tundra. Given her surroundings she is relatively warm. 

The wind doesn’t whip or scream as she crosses the endless white landscape. It is day time, the sun glitters and glimmers over the ceaseless winter blanket. Now that she can see in front of her, she comes to realize that the world around her is quite beautiful. Pillars of ice jut out of the ground and some come to form grand and elegant arcs against the midday horizon. 

Nearby is a still and frozen lake, she convinces Sokka to walk alongside it with her. 

Every few yards, one of the guards lays down a large and bright flag so that they have something to guide them back to the village. She is careful to keep them in her line of sight, even as they follow the stream. 

She observes the ice floe as it drifts lazily along. Elegant and large chunks of ice drift by and frustrate the fishermen as they try to make a living. Her breathes come out in soft puffs as she moves along. “Any wise group of people would set up somewhere close to a body of water.” She comments. 

“In other words, you think that if we keep following the river, we’ll find the compound?”

She nods. 

“Lead the way.” He says.

An hour of following the river leaves her cheeks and nose pink. Sokka brings the group to a halt. “What are you doing?” She asks. 

He laughs, “your face is as red as Fire Nation armor. Here…” he unfolds her scarf and re-wraps it around her mouth and nose. “If you’re going to wear a scarf, you should wear it right.”

She folds her arms over her chest. “I haven’t had to wear a scarf before.” She defends. 

“Well, now you know how to use one.” He laughs. 

**.oOo.**

Watching her stumble around in the snow is always rather enjoyable. Considering her usual grace and poise, there is an extra tier of humor seeing her nearly trip over camouflage mounds of snow. Every now and again, he has to thrust his arm out and catch her around the middle before her face can meet the snow. 

In spite of it all, the princess seems to be enjoying herself rather well. He thinks that she is pleased to be out and about again and doing something productive. It would seem that a simple memory wipe can’t erase her drive and ambition. She tries to pass on a lunch break but she is outvoted and they find themselves seated on the floor of a miniature cave, just off the bank of the river.

“I don’t think that we are on track.” Azula frowns. “I didn’t see any caves when I made my escape.” 

“You made it sound like you couldn’t see anymore than an arm’s length in front of you.” Sokka points out and offers her some jerky. 

Looking mighty grumpy, the princess takes it, pulls down her scarf, and bites into it. “Well, yes, I suppose that, that is true.” He can sense the skepticism in her voice.

“We don’t have to find the facility today.” Zuko mentions. 

“That’s what you said yesterday and the day before that.” Azula points out. “What if they’ve abolished it?”

“An entire compound?” Sokka asks. 

“I can wipe out this entiere cave if use enough fire.” 

“But do they have fire?” Zuko inquires. 

“They had help from one of Fire Lake’s nurses.” She shrugs. “They could be working with firebenders.” Something in her expression darkens. “They could have used  _ my  _ fire.” She gives a pointed look to her arms, probably visualizing the scars beneath her coats. 

Sokka takes a bite of his jerky, savoring its dry and salty flavor. “Mmm, this is some good meat. Tasty, tasty meat.” 

Azula rolls her eyes. He realizes that she hasn’t made much progress on her own snack so he asks, “hey can I have…”

Suddenly she is very invested in the jerky.

**.oOo.**

White is becoming painful on her eyes. There is so much of it and the sun glinting off of it as it makes its descent is even more searing to her retinas. She sees a burst of red in the sky. Minutes later it is followed by another red burst further to the west. And then another. 

“Should we start heading back too?” Sokka asks. 

Azula pinches the bridge of her nose. “Maybe the reason we aren’t getting anywhere is because we keep heading back to the village when the sun starts to set.” 

“And we resume our search in a new direction…”

“Maybe we need to stick to one direction until we find something.” She doesn’t mean to be so abrasive, but her patience is wearing thin. “We should keep going, at least a little further. If we have to, we can sleep in that cave for the night. 

“Alright, we can search a little longer.” Zuko gives in. 

“Thank you.” She brings herself to say, albeit, rather exasperatedly. 

Conversation seems to drop as they continue their trek across the snow. The temperature is crawling steadily down and she is starting to shiver. Occasionally, Sokka and Zuko exchange hushed murmurs. Along with a fall of snow and a bitter chill, she feels tension in the air and she begins to think that they are angry with her for pushing them to continue. 

She finds herself torn between her ambitions and insecurities; the itch to at least reclaim what is hers and the desire to make sure that she won’t outcast herself again. 

It serves only to frey her nerves further so she keeps quiet, as to keep herself from making snippy outbursts.

Though Zuko and Sokka walk next to her and a team of Imperial Firebenders behind her, she begins to feel isolated. Closed off within a bubble of her own goals and ruthless desire to bring them to fruition. 

Her fingers are growing chilly and her legs are beginning to feel achy. The only sound she can hear is the crunch of the snow beneath her feet. She shivers again, less from the cold and more from familiarity. It is so quiet and the ache in her legs seems to magnify itself. The place where her pinky should be throbs. Irrationally, she begins to fear losing it. 

The wind rustles her bangs and park. It is a rather gentle breeze, but it may as well have been a howling gust. 

She has to bite her tongue when Sokka and Zuko mumble something else to one another. She doesn’t bite it hard enough, “are the two of you having an enthralling time back there?” 

Sokka seems to wince. 

“Yeah, it’s a real party back here, thanks.” Zuko snaps back and Sokka cringes again. 

“Well that’s wonderful, but maybe, we’ll make some real progress if the two of you stop fooling around and…”

“What’s wrong with you?” Zuko asks. 

“What’s wrong with me!?” She grits out, bringing her forward march to a stop. 

She is cold, she is achy, she is stressed and frustrated and making no headway, and every time the wind hits her in just the wrong way she pictures her body curled up and frozen through and through beneath a heap of snow. 

She is breathing somewhat heavily, each and every rugged breath is punctuated with a smoky wisp. 

Her fists are clenched as far as the mittens allow. 

Sokka places a tender hand on her shoulder. “You don’t like being out here.” It isn’t a question. “And you don’t like the quiet?” This is. “Because it makes you feel like you’re alone out here?” 

It is jarring how accurate his guess work is. 

“Are you sure that you don’t want to take a break for the night?”

“I don’t  _ need  _ a break!” She lashes out. “I  _ need  _ to find that compound.” She needs this to be over. She needs not feel relentlessly persecuted. “Sokka, I need to…”

His grip on her shoulders tightens and he gives a light half-smile. “You need to make real progress and you need something to take your mind off of…” he gestures around, “all of this.” 

Azula nods. “It feels the same.”

“The same?” Zuko’s voice softens. 

“No one talking to me. Only hearing the wind and snow under my feet.” She replies. 

“If you wanted someone to talk to, all you had to do was ask.” Sokka says. “You know that, right?” 

“Sometimes I forget.” Truth be told, she had begun to lapse into another time entirely. “Thank you.” 

“For what?” Zuko asks. 

“Nevermind.” She shakes her head. She isn’t sure how to explain what they had prevented by pulling her attention back into the present. “Your stupid conversation, whatever it was, was actually helpful.” 

Zuko sighs, “I don’t understand you sometimes.” 

“Good.” Azula replies. 

“I am so glad that we got to go with this group.” She hears one of the Imperial Firebenders mutter to his partner. 

“It’s mighty interesting, alright.” Mutters the other. 

Despite the ruthlessly biting cold, Azula begins to relax. Things fall silent again, but this time Sokka walks closely enough to keep her grounded. She finds herself linking her arm with his. If Zuko perturbed by their closeness, he makes no mention of it. Sokka certainly doesn’t protest the gesture. 

They walk for some twenty minutes more when Azula finds herself squinting, looking off into the distance. She swallows hard. Out of the snow rises a boxy, concrete structure with visible piping running down its walls to beneath the snow. 

“Signal the other teams.” Azula commands. She just hopes that they aren’t so distant that it won’t be seen.


	27. The Metal Table

She gives the other teams only until she can scope out the building for a second entrance to arrive. For now stealth and a smaller team will be better anyhow. She makes a second and third trek around the compound. 

“Azula, I don’t think that there’s a secret or even a second entrance.” Zuko says. She resentfully must admit that she thinks he might be right. Though she does not say as much out loud, instead she mutters, “there has to be another way in.” 

“Maybe we should wait for the other team and storm the place?” Sokka suggests. 

Azula shakes her head. “If they know we’re here, they might destroy their notes.” Her face pales at the idea. 

“So, what? We just break in and…” Zuko starts. 

“I can take as many of them down as I have to.” She replies with a healthy dash of confidence. “Everyone tells me that I’m a prodigy.” She lets a small burst of fire wave in her palm. “And I like to think that you’ve got some skill, you are the Fire Lord afterall.” 

“And I have a boomerang that I’m not afraid to use.” Sokka declares with the spunk she had hoped to induce in Zuko. 

She puts a hand on his shoulder, “come on, Zuko.” 

He gives an audible sigh before caving in. “Keep an eye out for the other teams.” He instructs the Imperial Firebenders. 

The first sign that something is startlingly off comes when the door simply slides open with a grimace-inducingly loud groan. She slinks into the dark of the building building--her second sign that something is wrong. The last time she was here the place was decently lit by torch light. 

Even without the speculation that something isn’t right, Azula finds herself nearly overcome with dread. Just seeing these dismal halls again, feeling the heavy atmosphere of distress and hostility. She swallows hard and summons another blue flame. 

“It’s abandoned.” She mumbles, her stomach sinking. This should relive her; they can’t re-capture her if they aren’t around to do so. 

“Maybe they’re hiding?” Sokka asks.

Azula shakes her head. “There’s no benefit to hiding. Not when they have research to protect. Unless…” she trails off. She shines her flame over the walls, they are barren and seemingly endless. 

“Unless what?” Sokka asks. 

She slides her hands over the walls looking for something, anything out of place. A loose panel in the wall perhaps or a broken tile in the floor. “Why would they just leave their notes and instruments in plain sight?” She asks. “There has to be something else, some secret annex or a hidden entrance…”

“I thought that we said there weren’t any of those.” Zuko points out. 

“On the outside, yes. But inside…” she pauses. “There might be something in here, a hidden entrance to a deeper part of the facility. Tell the Imperial Firebenders to get in here and help us look. 

**.oOo.**

Azula lingers rather close to him. She is doing surprisingly well for being within the walls that constantly present themselves in her nightmares. He wonders if she is more anxious than she is letting on; with Zuko and the guards present he can’t imagine her expressing her stresses quite as openly.

Her sheer closeness is confirmation enough. She doesn’t say it but she heavily implies that she doesn’t want him to stray too far from her. And when he tests the waters and does, she drifts closer to Zuko.

He is beginning to think that she is correct in her assumption that the place has been vacated. They haven’t been particularly quiet and not one personal has come to check out the ruckus. 

“Sokka!” 

He jolts at the abruptness of her call. It takes him a moment to register that there is no distress in her voice.

“I found something, give me a hand.”

He turns the corner to see the princess struggling to push aside a rather large badgermole statue. They line the entirety of this hall, “what’s so special about that one?”

“Just…” she huffs as she pushes all of her weight against the statue. “Help me move it.” 

He watches her struggle for a moment longer, faintly amused by the dainty, petite princess trying to heave something at least twice her weight and height. “If I can’t move it, we might have to wait for Toph or Aang.” He notes as he adds his strength to her fight. It doesn’t give even an inch. 

Azula gives another pant before wandering off, presumably to fetch more man power. It takes the entirety of their party to move the badgermole aside. It scrapes thunderously across the floor, if anyone remained in the compound they surely would have come to check things out.

With the statue out of the way, they can now see a yawning opening in the floor.

“So...who wants to go down first?” Sokka asks. 

He doesn’t need to see it to know that Azula is rolling her eyes again. She lets the flame blaze brighter in her grasp and begins her descent. 

**.oOo.**

The hidden staircase opens into another long and narrow hallway. Azula isn’t particularly fearful of tight spaces but something about the low ceiling and overall orientation of the hallway, has her feeling disoriented and uncomfortable. She, for once, is grateful that she lacks height. Even having such a slight and small build, she has to dip her head to keep it from colliding with the ceiling. Zuko and Sokka have to crouch and the tallest of the Imperial Firebenders have to crawl. 

There are several rooms, shining her fire into them, she finds them mostly vacant save for a desk and a chair or some abandoned cleaning supplies. She is grateful that they hadn’t locked her in a room down here, she could only imagine the hellish images her mind could conjure from time in one of them. 

She doesn’t have to imagine for much longer. The room at the very back of the hallway is not as empty as the others. It has only one perk; that she can rise to her full height in here. But that is as far as the comforts go. Everything else has her deciding that she would rather be out there again. Not that she will leave so soon, not when there are shelves to be searched. 

Azula doesn’t quite get that far though. Her attention is captured by the metal table at the center of the room. Its leather straps are unbound and waiting for something to hug. Under the eerie blue light of her flame, it gleams menacingly, inviting her back into its clutches. Next to the table are various tools; she spies scalpels of various sizes, needles, and a set of carving chisels. Their wooden handles are stained with blood, despite efforts to clean them. They couldn’t get the blood out of the straps either. 

Her belly flutters, she wonders how much of that blood is her own. How much of it had pooled on the floor of this room. She notices that there is, in fact, a rather liberal amount of it coagulated on the floor alongside clumps of vine and residue of vine sap.

She takes a reflexive step back. If she stares for too long, she can almost picture her prone body strapped onto the cold metal, limp and abused. Her mouth runs dry and she pries her eyes away from the scene. 

Just as reflexively, she clutches Zuko’s hand. Sokka is on the other side of the room, opening and shutting drawer after drawer. She notices that she is shaking slightly. Undeniably, Zuko knows it too. 

Though she no longer stares at the operating table, visions bombard her mind like pounding fists. They have the effect of fists. She had been awake, she knows it now. Fully aware when the scalpels carefully sliced her arms. Fully aware when those they dug those carving chisels, into her chi points and harvested them. Completely cognizant when they opened her belly and prodded her fire chakra. 

She feels trapped. Visions of blood weeping from her arms and bubbling from her stomach and dripping down her sides and hips flash in her mind. The feeling of it seeping under her and wetting her back. Visions of vines wrapped like slimy crowns around her head. They hold her mouth open and force the vines in. 

Azula thinks that these all might have been separate instances but they blend together in her mind. 

She doesn’t know when she had done it, but she is squatting with her head gripped in her hands. Sokka hugs her tightly while Zuko rubs small circles on her back. “You’re alright.” Sokka murmurs, “you’re alright.” 

She takes a deep breath and pushes herself to her feet. “Yes, I am.” She replies. “I just...needed a moment.” 

“Azula you were shaking…” Zuko starts. She cuts him a glare. “Azula.”

Sokka nudges him, “not in front of them.” He says quietly and nods towards the Imperial Firebenders.

“What happened back there?” Zuko asks when they make it back to the upper floor. 

“I just... the memories of that room came back. A few of them anyways, there were too many at once.” She pauses. “Did you find anything?”

“No.” Sokka replies. “The drawers were all empty.”

“We’ll do a final sweep of this floor and then we’ll call it a failed mission and head back.” Azula replies. 

Zuko and Sokka trade glances. “Azula, we can’t go back out there. Not until morning.” Zuko speaks. 

She grits her teeth and holds her head high, “very well. I’ll see if I can find an adequate place to sleep while I do my second sweep.” 

Sokka tags along as she makes her way down the hall. It is just as stressful to navigate as it had been on the day of her escape. They wander, occasionally finding that they have gone in a large circle. 

Along the way, she pushes doors open looking for stray papers or any sort of bedding. She finds neither. She finds nothing at all of use or comfort and everything that puts her on edge. And then she comes upon something that runs her blood and soul colder than the world beyond the compound. 

She heaves another door open and enters a terrifyingly familiar room. A room where she had previously curled herself into a feeble ball time and time again. This room has not been cleansed; her blood still blemishes the white floor tiling. 

The scars that plague her body tingle and twitch as though they have just been newly stitched. The room seems to tilt and spin, her head is dizzy and her stomach threatens to empty itself. Well out of earshot, she allows herself a small choking noise, something between a gasp and a cry. She drops to her knees as the memories come back on full; all of the tortured nights she’d spent naked and shivering on this very floor. The helplessness and that dreadful feeling that she is alive just to suffer and be picked apart. 

“Come on, let's go somewhere else.” Sokka offers, his voice is distant in her mind. And it fades further until she is very much alone again. 

Alone and waiting for them to burst in and carry her off to the operating room. The scar on her tummy pulses violently. 

She bunches herself up and wraps her arms protectively around her middle, as though her fire chakra hasn’t already been assaulted. She feels hands lifting her off the ground and she shouts. She brings the fire to her captor’s chest. 

He gives a cry of his own and she seizes the opportunity to give him a hard shove and bolt. Her breathing is erratic as she frantically tries to recall which way will take her to the foyer. Which way will take her to freedom. 

She hears footsteps behind her and makes an abrupt choice to go left. She is being pursued. She hears the footfalls behind her. She hears them in front of her too. They have her cornered. She hadn’t thought it through, she has managed to corner herself. Her breathing grows heavier as the sets of feet grow closer. “No.” She utters. “No, no.”

They surround her.

“Azula what’s going on? What did you do to Sokka?” The voice isn’t gruff nor angry but her mind distorts it in such a way that it may as well be. 

They close in on her. She ignites her palms but there are too many of them. They take hold of her hands and one of them takes her around the middle. She continues to kick and struggle. She won’t let them strap her to that damn table again. 

She won’t!

Someone manages to seize her legs. Her mind and body can take no more stress. 

At least this time she won’t be awake when they rip into her. 


	28. To Hold A Friend

Azula jerks up right, it is dark and nippy and her body still shakes. She inspects her arms, but it is too dark to see if there are any new stitches. She doesn’t feel like there are. She doesn’t feel the slick warmth of blood. If they haven’t picked at her arms then…

She lifts her shirt and runs her hands over her sides and belly. She only finds the visages of old wounds. 

Squinting her eyes, she feels the length of her legs. They are smooth and unscarred. 

Perhaps her back…

She begins to come back to herself. She realizes that she is not in the white room and when she tries to recall what has happened to her, she remembers it with perfect clarity. And, Agni, does she wish that she didn’t.

Azula swallows hard and draws her legs up to her chest. Sokka and Zuko snore audibly and the Imperial Firebenders--save for the one on look out--slumber around her. 

She wonders how many of them it had taken to subdue her. 

She is dangerous. 

This is why everyone had looked at her with fear in their eyes when she’d first come back. 

“You’re awake.” Sokka notes. She cringes and scans his chest for a burn. His parka has a hole burned through it but it doesn’t look as though she has hurt him. That doesn’t stop her from thinking of how terribly she might have. 

She casts her eyes away from him as she says, “yes.” 

“Good. I was kind of worried.” At Sokka’s reply, Zuko stirs. “Why don’t we go somewhere else so we don’t wake everyone up?”

“Because you probably shouldn’t be alone with me, especially not here.” 

At first he looks puzzled and then he seems to connect the dots. “I’m not afraid of you.” 

“Maybe you should be.” She mutters as she props herself up against the wall. Against, perhaps, her better judgement, Azula pushes away Sokka’s parka. She nearly grimaces at the sight of an angry red blotch on his upper chest. 

“It’s no big deal!” Sokka says quickly. “It’s like a sunburn…”

Azula narrows her eyes. “Sunburns only blister when they are serious.”

“It’s an easy fix.” He insists. When we get back to Katara, she can heal it right away.” 

And when Katara sees it...when the others see it...the delicate trust that they’ve established will be null. She lightly bites her lower lip and says nothing at all. 

“Go back to sleep, you could use the rest.”

Azula puts her head back down but she doesn’t close her eyes. There is no sense trying. She watches Sokka get himself cozy again. She rolls onto her side, feeling sick and nauseous. The compound has been built to keep the cold out but she finds herself chilled in spite of this. She can still feel hands on her. Can still feel needles and scalpels burrowing into her delicate skin and exploring her chi points. 

Her head throbs. 

Her body shakes lightly. 

She holds herself tightly. She knows that it is terribly irrational yet she still feels as though and can’t fight off the thought that they will come back for her. That she will see their silhouetted figures haloed in moonlight and battered by snow standing in the doorway. That they will pick her off of the floor and drag her into the compact bowles of the compound where they will wrap vines around her head and continue to pick her apart. 

Azula swallows and fixes her eyes on the door, should it so much as creak she will have fire on her palms. She can hear her blood beating behind her ears and her heart thumping in her chest. 

**.oOo.**

She is crying softly to herself again. He is surprised that she has only awakened him. He doesn’t need to see it to know that her golden eyes gleam with tears. He has an urge to wipe them away with his thumbs. Instead he reaches out. His hand stops a few feet from her shoulder before he retracts it and utters a quiet, “hey.” 

Azula’s body jerks. He catches the smallest burst of fire before it dies away. He finds himself thankful that he hadn’t abruptly touched her again. 

She turns to him. 

“I can’t sleep here Sokka, I can’t  _ stay  _ here” She chokes out. 

Sokka bites his lip, beginning to regret having so quickly shot down the possibility of seeking shelter elsewhere. “Sorry.” He mumbles. 

“For what?” 

“For not even considering trying to find somewhere else to stay…”

She dismisses the apology. “Not logical anyways.”

“Huh?”

“For the whole of the group, it is better to stay here.” Her voice is still breathy and shaky with nerves but her speech sounds much more like her. Reassuringly like her. “But  _ I _ can’t stay here.”

“Do you want to try to find someplace else?” 

She seems to hone in on the relentless howl of the wind as it beats against and throws snow at the compound. She shakes her head. “It’ll be morning by the time we do, anyways.”

“So what do you want to do?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing that I’m actually able to do right now.” 

His heart clenches and he gives the room a once over. “Why don’t we go for a little walk? We can find a part of the compound that you haven’t been in much.” He suggests. 

Azula nods. “That might help.” 

He offers a hand and hopes that she will take it. He freats when her eyes wander to the singed portion of his parka. 

**.oOo.**

She lets Sokka help her to her feet, though she is perfectly capable of doing as much on her own, it is nice to have the hand there. “That hallway is familiar.” She points to it. “We should try that one.” She tugs him towards the hallway opposite it. He makes no objections. 

“Are you going to be alright?” He asks. 

“In the morning, when we leave here, I will be.” Azula answers. 

She takes a corner and drops her pillows and sleeping bag. 

“You just want to sleep in the hall?”

“I don’t like being in any of those rooms.” She suppresses a shudder. Distantly, in her mind, she still feels out of sorts. Still feels as though she is in two places...two time frames at once. That she is not quite in her own body. 

It will only take a small nudge to knock her out of it completely and back to that place. That place that is only torment and unyielding fear. 

“Okay, that’s fine.” Sokka smiles. She tries to keep her stare on it. It is pleasant, unlike the angry red mark on his chest. She spreads out her sleeping back and sits down upon it. Sokka takes a seat next to her and hovers his hand above her back. “Can I?” 

Azula nods and his hand finds its usual place between her shoulder blades. “You’re so tense.” He remarks. 

“Yes.” She confirms. 

“Here, lay down.” 

Her body aches and strains all over so she complies with that instruction. She lays upon her belly and tucks her arms under her head. Sokka lifts the back of her shirt and gently prods at the chi point located at the small of her back. She gives a soft little sigh, only one chi point in and some of the tension has already left her. 

He works his hands up her back, tenderly rubbing the aches out of it. She closes her eyes and silently drinks in the soothing feeling of his touch. 

**.oOo.**

He wonders if it would kill the mood to tell her that he had, indeed, asked Dr. Phang for massage tips after her little jest about doing so. Decidedly, it will so he continues quietly working out the knots in Azula’s chi points. 

Her breathing is growing more relaxed and even and his heart floods with relief. He can only imagine how relieved she feels. He reaches the spot between her shoulder blades, this is a particularly tense spot, the muscles beneath feel almost more knotted than the chi points. He cups his hands in small C’s over her shoulders and carefully squeezes and lifts. With any luck he can relax her enough to get her to sleep. 

Azula still says nothing but occasionally gives a hushed, satisfied hum. 

“Roll over.” 

The princess does so. Now, lying on her back, Sokka places the heels of his hands on the sides of her neck and rubs out. “This one has always been tricky for me.” He notes as he tries to work out the kinks in her neck. 

“You’re fine.” She mumbles. 

He smiles. “Good to know.” When he finishes working with her neck and works with her arms. These are nearly as tense as her shoulders. It takes him longer to rub the soreness from them. He lightly but firmly presses his thumbs over her chi points, taking special attention to not dig too deep and cut off her chi. 

Sokka is reassured that he is doing well at the faintest smile that appears on her lips. 

**.oOo.**

He sets right arm down and picks up the other. Her right arm hums and tingles pleasantly. It is looser and considerably less achy than it had been. Sokka doesn’t quite have the expertise of Dr. Phang, but he is a formidable substitute. 

From her arms he moves to her legs. Personally, she would have gone for the chest first but she doesn’t argue. Her legs are mighty sore from trudging through the snow for hours. It is well to feel some of the tension in them alleviated. It is a very helpful distraction from her surroundings. She closes her eyes as his hands move to her navel. Truly, her fire chakra and the chi points around it can use the massage. He is kind and careful when working with it. He works the palm of his hand in circles over her abdomen. Over and over until she feels like her fire is flowing freely. It has been a while since she has felt her chakra burn so pleasantly warm. 

She gives another small and pleasured sigh. 

He seems to hesitate, his hand lingers above her chest until she takes it in hers and brings his touch to her skin. “I don’t mind. Go on.” She doesn’t mind at all. She just hopes that he is comfortable as well. 

Sokka hesitates only a moment more before rubbing the same circles on her chest. The massage is endlessly soothing. She can almost find sleep. Mayhaps one day, she could try to return the favor. 

“There.” He says, withdrawing his touch. 

“Lay down?” Azula pats the sleeping bag. 

Sokka stretches himself out next to her. Her belly flutters, she isn’t particularly one to take chances, but the entirety of her night has been full of anxiousness and discomfort. At least this time around it will be controlled. She pulls herself closer to him, half expecting him to scoot back or to lightly push her away. 

Instead he resumes rubbing her back and shoulders. 

She wraps her arms around him and presses her forehead against the unburned part of his chest.    
She thinks that, perhaps, she can sleep like this. 

**.oOo.**

Nervous jitters tingle in Sokka’s tummy as the princess nuzzles herself against him. He was plenty aware of the intimacy of a massage, particularly an all over massage. But he hadn’t been quite prepared for her to wiggle herself so close. 

He doesn’t have any complaints though. The night has an abundant chill and her body is tremendously warm, especially with her fire chakra flowing more freely. She wraps her arms around him and he returns the gesture. 

As he rubs her back and shoulders, he again finds himself wondering if he should be so affectionate with her. He peers down at Azula, her frame is so small against his own. Small but full of frightening power. He feels her hands curl around the cloth of his parka. 

She is, by all accounts, probably the most precious thing he has seen in a long time. 

Since Suki. 

Yet, he vividly recalls when that soft expression had been coldly and cruelly blank. When fire cast sinister shadows upon it. When it was accented by a truly devious and unkind smirk. When those hands that bunch into his park hand punched bursts of fire at he and his friends. 

And she is oblivious to the burnt of it. 

For the time, her hands trace the muscles of his biceps, rubbing in small circles that are as tender as the ones he had offered her. Still, he can’t help but wonder how long that will last when her mind is whole again. 

“Thank you, Sokka.” She mumbles. 

His stomach lurches and he feels guilty for thinking somewhat ill of her. “For what.” 

She squints her eyes as though he has inquired about the most stupid thing. “Just in general, I suppose.” 

He finds himself running his hand over her hair. She utters a quiet little purr. 

Still it takes him aback when she presses a kiss to his neck. And this one is much less brief than the peck she had given him back at the institution. 

He hugs her closer. 

Fears and reluctances be damned, he thinks that he might be falling for her. 


	29. The Parchment

Azula is rather surprised to find that he is still holding her and more shocked to realize that she had managed to sleep at all. Albeit, a restless sleep. Several times she had woken with a feeling of dread and paranoia. Several times she found herself gripping a deeply slumbering and snoring Sokka tighter. It is a wonder that she hadn’t woken him with how firm her grip had grown.  
She finds herself silently embarrassed that she was being so clingy and, dare she say, childish. In the back of her mind, she supposes that her fear is justified. Even still, she feels foolish for it. As the sunrises outside, she loosens her hold on him. 

She waits until he stirs to pull herself from his grasp, but he doesn’t even begin to wake before something else startles her out of his arms. Her jerks awake when she bolts upright. Looking comically more horrified and mortified than the both of them combined, the third figure stands in the doorway.

“Zuzu…” She greets with an inward cringe. 

“I’ve been looking for you.” He sputters through his embarrassment. “I was worried after…” 

“You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.” She shrugs, she finds herself hoping that, that isn’t a lie. In light of things, it sure feels like one. 

“I do need to worry about you.” He insists. “You should have seen how you reacted last night when we…” he trails off at the look she fixes him with. It lies somewhere between hurt, anger, and shame. And she sees it on his face that it makes him uneasy. “I didn’t mean that.” He tries. 

“Then what did you mean?” Really, she thinks that he can only mean one thing. That he thinks that she lacks control. That she can snap within a moment’s notice. “I’m not crazy. I…” Now she trails off as her eyes wander back to Sokka’s singed parka. “I just need to get out of here.”

“Yeah.” Zuko rubs the back of his head. “That’s all I meant.” He tries. “That this place isn’t good for you and that’s why I’m worried.”

“I have control.” She persists. “That was a...lapse in judgement.”

Zuko’s face softens and she feels bad all over again for inadvertently guilt tripping him while trying to justify herself. “I know.” He tries to smile. “That wasn’t you.” 

Her heart seizes and her stomach drops; deep down it feels as though it was exactly her. That, that sort of lashing out is in her nature. That, that sort of thing had been routine in her life prior to this compound. “It was me.” She says quietly.

Sokka leans in almost annoyingly close. And just as childishly, though well meaning, he whispers in her ear--almost as if to imitate her own soft tone, “it isn’t anymore.”

Having been well and caught, he makes no attempts at subtlety when he wraps his arms around her waist. Like that she recalls having kissed him and her cheeks very nearly color. She isn’t sure what had possessed her to do it, but she doesn’t entirely regret it either.  
She doesn’t regret it at all. 

In the doorway, Zuko seems to grow more uncomfortable. “We’re going to be heading back to the village soon.”

“I’m sure that they’ll be eager to hear that we’ve all wasted our time.” She grumbles. 

Zuko sighs but only briefly before a flicker of mischief lights his eyes. “Something tells me that it wasn’t a complete waste of time.” 

This time, her face does color some and Sokka’s grows so red that one could assume that he’d been wandering the tundra for hours. She clears her throat, “we’ll see.” 

.oOo.

He is reluctant to let Azula wander off on her own again but, all the same, Sokka knows that she won’t take well to him trying to stop her. Or worse, treating her like she is fragile and helpless. He just hopes that she doesn’t return to the lobby shaking and shouting again. 

Sokka is fussing with his pack, trying to stuff his sleeping bag back into it. This is already eating up way too much time and he still has to figure out what to do about the gaping hole in his parka. He doesn’t even begin to consider his options when Zuko drops down next to him.

“You two didn’t…” he trails off. “Did you?”

Sokka’s face remains blank until his mind connects the dots. “What!? No! We just slept together!” His face turns a brighter red than it ever has before then. “I mean, not like that!” He falters. “I mean we slept next to each other but not with each other! And we had clothes on the whole time. It’s too cold to take them off anyways! I don’t think that your sister would have…”

“Sokka.” Zuko cuts his rambling off. 

It is his turn to nervously rub the back of his head. “Look it was just a bit of cuddling.” And a kiss. He adds in his head. And a massage. He gnaws the inside of his cheek. “Okay and I gave her a little massage. Back at the Lake Fire institute, she got a massage from one of the doctors and it helped her relax. So I thought that…”

Zuko chuckles. “I get it, you were trying to help.” He pauses and his face goes frighteningly serious again. Almost like the look that their father had given Aang when Katara introduced him as the boyfriend. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Sometime today, but you walked in before I could.” He pauses. “It sort of just happened.”

“You mean that this is the first time you, uh...cuddled with my sister?”

“Well…” he starts. “Sort of. No. She’s been having trouble sleeping and she said that it helps her sleep better when she has company. But, this was the first time she kissed me.” He continues quickly, hoping to gloss over the kissing bit. “It started out with me just staying in the same room as her but then she asked me to lay down next to her and we had a pillow between us…” he is rambling again but it is just as well, if he adds in enough fluff, Zuko might miss the worst of the details. 

“When did this start?” Sokka doesn’t know what to make of his friend’s tone. Is it angry? Surprised? Amused? Perhaps all three?

“Back at the palace, after our fight.” But no, he thinks that it began before that. Even if he hadn’t realized it he thinks that the spark had been there since he’d taken her to see the tundra lights. Though she hadn’t been able to enjoy the display, he thinks that the moment had been a tender one. “It helps her sleep…” he adds again, weakly. “I don’t think that she likes being alone.” He finishes rather lamely.  
Of course she doesn’t like being alone.  
No one likes being alone. 

“Look, Sokka, I’m just happy that she’s got something to help her deal with everything.”

Sokka thinks of the screaming, impulsive woman who had come along with them to track Ursa down and thinks that Zuko pictures the same. “She didn’t really have anyone before, did she?” 

Zuko gives a sad little head shake. “That’s why I’m not going to kick your ass.” Sokka can’t tell if this is a wisecrack or a serious statement. “But I question your taste in women.”

Sokka gives a sigh of relief. “Your girlfriend likes to stab things with pointy things.” 

“And yours likes to conquer powerful nations.” Zuko points out. 

But Sokka is still stuck on the implication, “she’s not my girlfriend.” He says right away. “I don’t think that she is...she never said…”

“But she kissed you?” Zuko asks. So he had caught that.

“Well, yeah but…” Sokka trails off. “I don’t know if it really meant anything.” He is scared to admit that it had to him. “Sometimes I think that it only happened because I just so happened to be the first person to warm up to her.” 

Zuko seems to think it over. “I guess that you’ll have to ask her.” 

But Sokka is almost certain that Azula isn’t even sure of exactly what she is doing this time around.

.oOo.

Azula purses her lips in frustration. “This is useless, completely useless.” She hisses more to herself than the imperial firebenders that have taken the initiative to accompany her. They trail behind her as she wanders down the hall. “There has to be something here…” she muses allowed. Anything. 

She comes to the closet that she had stolen her parka from during her grand flight. At the very least, there better be a spare parka hanging around for Sokka’s use. Even if it is as bulky and big as her steal had been on her, he can always throw it over his own parka and be warmer still. 

She tugs the door open and finds only one lonely parka, she snatches it up and makes her way back down the hall. In the back of her mind is a nagging desire to take off into a sprint as it conjures up images of shadowed figures peering from around the corner. 

Azula grips the parka tighter; how pathetic will it be to let this place get to her for a third time. She draws in a breath and exhales it. The only people behind her are those that seek to accompany her out of this place. By the looks on their faces, she’d wager that the place discomforts them to a degree. 

“I found something for you.” She shoves the parka into Sokka’s arms. She waits for a rather solid minute before muttering, “you’re welcome.”

“Sorry.” He mumbles back. “I wasn’t paying attention.” 

“Clearly.” Azula agrees. “You’d be relieved and gracious if you had been. I didn’t have to find this for you.” 

Sokka chuckles as he tugs the parka on. It is not the response that she had been hoping for. She hadn’t exactly anticipated him falling at her feet and thanking her for her generosity, but a small thank you wouldn’t have been too much to ask for. Her expression falls somewhere between a pout and an annoyed scowl. 

He slings an arm around her. “It’s a little big.” Her frown deepens. “But it’ll work.”  
“I hope that it does.” She replies. 

“Thanks.” He says at last. 

She supposes that she had no right to push him for a thank you considering that he wouldn’t have needed a new park at all if she hadn’t ruined his first one. 

“I think that everyone is packed up.” Zuko announces. “We just need to find you a new…”

“Taken care of, Zuzu.” Azula pats the gaping hole that is now covered by a new parka. 

“I guess that we’re set to go then.” She can hear the disappointment in his voice and is certain that it stems from no longer being able to delay their inevitable venture into the merciless pole weather. 

When they finally do manage to get a distance from the vacant facility, conversation has died out to give way to concentration. The snow is significantly deeper now that a night’s worth of it has fallen. Azula tries to take her mind elsewhere, someone out of the cold. Somewhere warmer.  
Warmer like within Sokka’s embrace.

Perhaps she should ask him if he will take her to see the lights again. Now that she isn’t wholly off put by the very notion of looking out into the tundra. He had mentioned that they relieve his stress, she thinks that it would be a good way to make up for burning him. 

Azula’s mind wanders again, not particularly far though. She still thinks of Sokka. More specifically she dwells on the kiss. She wonders if and hopes that she hasn’t taken something perfectly good and made it awkward. She thinks that she is rather good at that. Yet she can’t say that she regrets it. It had felt rather right to do but he hadn’t returned the gesture. 

She spares him a look and briefly wonders what he is thinking about. 

.oOo.

It takes all of his will power to not laugh at either of the two fire siblings as they awkwardly shamble over the snowbanks. Azula is especially entertaining with her being so small. He can tell that she is growing tired, even if she is doing everything in her power to pretend like she isn’t. Part of him wants to offer her a piggyback ride to the village. He isn’t sure how she would take the offer so he holds his tongue. He opts to pretend like he hasn’t noticed any of her more clumsy strides. Likely, she will get used to trekking through deep snow. Zuko only fares better by experience.

An invasive thought passes through his train of thought and he shudders. With nothing else to picture, he visualizes Azula, younger and colder, seething at the notion that Zuko is doing something with more expertise than she. 

The reassuring reality is much different. Zuko missteps bring him to an abrupt halt. Azula, either invested in a daydream or captured by a sheet of ice, collides with him. They both topple and Sokka can’t tell who makes which noise of distress. Azula is the first to rise, she shakes herself off and yanks Zuko to his feet with a harsh, “don’t stop so suddenly dum-dum.” The edge is taken by the chattering of her teeth. 

“Watch where you’re walking.” He shoots back with shivers just as intense. “I think I’ve got snow in my underpants.” 

“I think I’ve gotten some unwanted information in my ears.” Azula mutters. 

Sokka bursts out laughing. “You guys are great.” 

He’d never noticed how similar they look until they fix him with twin glares. 

“I should have you carry me.” She grumbles. 

It is all the permission that he needs. He bends slightly in front of her.

“What are you doing?” She crinkles her nose. 

“Offering you a ride on my back.” 

Azula ponders his offer. She takes a glimpse at the impression she and Zuko had left in the snow and wraps her legs around his trunk and drapes her arms over his shoulders. She feels her press her face against the hood of his parka as he resumes his stride.  
She is so generously warm.

“Why don’t we just melt a path through all of this?” Zuko throws his hands up. 

“Because, dum-dum, you’ll burn through your mittens.” 

.oOo.

By the time they reach the village Azula is once again sniffling and her cheeks are a bright rosy hue. She slides down from Sokka’s back and hustles her way into his home. She finds herself the furs that they had wrapped her in on her first night and flops onto the sofa. She isn’t in any particular hurry to share how useless the endeavour proved to be. Regardless, there is no sense in attending any sort of meeting with a running nose and tingling hands. She has even less desire to stand in front of the imperial firebenders in such a tousled state. 

She pulls her hood down and sets her mittens to the side so that she can light a fire in the small fireplace. 

“Cozy?” Sokka asks.

“Not yet.” She replies. 

“Zuko went to go let the others know that we’re back.”

Azula makes her way back to the sofa and has a seat next to him. “Alright.” She finds herself leaning into his arm. He doesn’t push her away. “Would you mind sharing that blanket?”

Azula stands, wraps the blanket around him, and takes a seat in his lap. She leans back and closes her eyes. She wants to offer him another kiss or perhaps curl her hand around his. But this time she doesn’t. This time, she wants him to make a move. 

Some time passes and her stomach sinks. For the first time, she considers that she could be making him uncomfortable. She has an awareness that they’d been rivals before, she can’t blame him for being weary of getting too close to her. It dawns upon her that, even free of the memories that come with it, she can’t shake the past away. She bites the inside of her cheek. How can she when she keeps doing things that remind everyone of it?

“What are you thinking about?” He asks. 

“You won’t tell them, will you?”

His brows furrow in confusion. She hovers her hand over his chest.

“I can’t exactly hide it.” 

Azula swallows. 

“It was an accident.” Sokka tries to be reassuring. But she gets no consolation at all. 

“What was an accident?” Katara asks. 

Azula is almost certain that her face has gone pale. 

“Maybe you should tell her.” Sokka mumbles in her ear. 

Wordlessly, she opens his parka to display the burn marks. “He was...we were going to ask you to heal it.” 

“What happened?”

“He…” She trails off. “Took my by surprise when we were in that room. I thought that he was someone else.” She doesn’t know how to explain it. She doesn’t think that there is a way to do so that would make the waterbender stop looking at her like that. “I thought that they were going to take me again.” 

“There’s a big difference between Sokka and whoever they are.” Katara replies. 

“It didn’t feel like it.” Azula replies. “It…”

“Remember those soldiers we saw in the Earth Kingdom?” Sokka asks. 

“What do they have to do with anything?”

“Some of them would get aggressive if they saw or heard something that reminded them of something that happened during the war.” He reminds. “They seemed like they were in two place at once…”

Yes, that is exactly it, Azula realizes. “Physically, they’re in the infirmary.” She adds quietly. “But their minds are somewhere else entirely. In a different time even.” She pauses. “It was like that.” She feels Sokka’s hold on her tighten. 

Katara’s expression softens. “That happens to our dad’s friend Bato sometimes.” 

“I guess that I finally have something to discuss with Dr. Yu-Kang.”

“That’s a start.” Katara replies. “Do you guys want some soup and jerky? Hakoda is heating it up.”

“Food sounds nice.” Sokka replies. 

"Let her heal you first." Azula scolds.

"Right." He laughs. He pulls his hands out of his borrowed parka and with them falls a few pieces of folded parchment.

Azula swipes them up while he peels layers of clothing off. Katara brings the healing water to his chest. "You're angry with me."

"You just burned my brother." Katara snaps. 

"I didn't mean to...I just..."

"You like controlling people, maybe you can try to control yourself."

Azula opens her mouth, a quip at the ready.

"Please don't argue with her." Sokka groans.

"She is the one..." Azula starts.

"You are the one who throws fire at everything that bothers you." 

"I haven't thrown any at you." She hisses. 

"You guys..."

"What's stopping you?" Katara asks. "You've never hesitated before."

"Kat, I have a chest that needs healing."

"You wouldn't if someone could keep herself in check." 

Azula flinches. This is going to end just as it had on their boat ride to the Fire Nation. Her face falls, perhaps she is simply meant to remain an outcast. It might be that they were all just waiting for her to hurt someone so that they'd have an excuse to begin hating and punishing her for the things that she can't remember. She stands abruptly, this time it is Katara who flinches. Azula can see her poising the water for a strike. It is hardly necessary, she bunches up the pieces of parchment and begins to make her way out of the shelter. 

"Azula, don't go." Sokka tries. "Tell her that she can stay, Kat. I'm not angry with her, we've already talked about this. I told her that you'd understand."

"Clearly she's still dangerous." 

"She's not." Sokka insists on her behalf. Azula stands rigidly, fighting an impulse to shift awkwardly. "She worried about you guys finding out about this. She feels bad about it." 

Azula swallows, not entirely comfortable with him sharing her privet thoughts. In light of the situation she decides to give him a pass. 

"It was a stressful situation. I shouldn't have caught her off guard." 

Azula shakes her head. "It's my fault Sokka." 

Again, Katara's expression grows sympathetic. "You're acknowledging that."

"I'll keep doing so if you acknowledge that I'm not some sort of twisted sadist." Decidedly she is at least a twisted, sure. Twisted and damaged and hard to reassure. But she has trouble seeing herself as a sadist.

"I guess that a sadist would look that upset about hurting someone." Katara admits.

Azula allows herself to relax if a little.

"See, was that so hard?" Sokka asks.

"Do you have to be so patronizing?" Katara rolls her eyes. 

As she brings her focus back on healing him, Azula unfolds the papers. Katara is still muttering about Sokka's quip but Azula finds that her discovery takes precedence. They can resume their banter later. "Sokka…" she trails off. "This is a map." She skims the next one. "These are details on the whereabouts of their main facility."


	30. Glowing Folds

Azula drinks in the warmth of the fire. Her mind is still abuzz from their venture to the Vine Research Facility. She lays herself on the ground, feeling worn out and pessimistic.

Truth be told, they hadn’t expected to find anything on the first go around. No fool would remain in one place after losing such a high profile captive. Even still, it had been decently embarrassing to have to relay to the rest of her party that her team had come up nearly as empty handed as everyone else. Embarassing to let everyone know that they’d wasted their time. At least she had been able to present the maps and notes. Though she can’t help but think that they were too convenient to be anything less than a decoy or a trap.

A trap, she can work with. A decoy is completely useless. 

Azula presses her fingers into her temples and groans in frustration. The maps all pointed to the Foggy Swamp. This is where they had been planning to go next anyhow. It might be that she is overthinking things again. Really what is the harm in following those maps if they had already been planning on going in that direction anyhow? At least now she can account for possible mishaps. 

She runs through various scenarios and possibilities and formulates a reaction plan for each. For this she is thankful for the notes. It keeps her mind from conjuring up images of Sokka’s lightly burnt chest and an imagined scent of charred flesh. 

It also keeps her from dwelling too much on how Katara, Mai, and TyLee seem to be avoiding her again. Toph and Aang have come to check on her. Aang had offered her a little insight on the Foggy Swamp and they’d had a fairly enthralling discussion about the place. Apparently, she is going to have to brace herself for hallucinations and startling phantasma. 

She is alone again, with the pair having retreated off to bed. Azula knows that she ought to be sleeping too. She sits up and draws her knees to her chest as she stares into the flames. 

She decides that she is in need of another distraction. 

Sokka too is slumbering but she wanders up to him anyhow and gently shakes him awake. She imagines that he is probably growing tired of this routine of her rousing him from sleep because it refuses to come to her. 

He mumbles something sleepy that she can’t make out. “Sokka?” She calls with volume and abruptness enough to make him jolt. He practically tosses the blanket off of himself.

“Geez, Azula!” He exclaims. “Having trouble sleeping again?”

She nods, “not for the reason you think though.”

He sits up and strokes the stubble on his chin. “Zuko says that you never liked failure, does it have something to do with that?”

Azula nods, “that’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?” 

“Come show me the lights and I’ll tell you?” She offers.

His blue eyes light up with glee. “You want to see the lights!?”

“Yes.” She replies. “Now that I’m not sick and frostbitten, I might be able to appreciate them more.” She doesn’t particularly have to say any more, he is already tugging on a heavier pair of pants and his parka. She hasn’t even taken her own off.

“Do you want me to heat up some tea and we can drink it while we watch the lights?”

“That sounds nice, Sokka.” She certainly isn’t one to pass on a little extra warmth. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka ignores any and all protests as he bundles Azula up more adequately. She already has her parka on but her mittens are still uselessly wet from their journey home. He steals them away from her and comes back with a dryer pair. Along with a few pairs of socks and hats, they had been hanging above the fireplace and heated generously. She grumbles various protests at him being so fussy and overly-nurturing with her but such complaints begin to fall short when the pleasantries of toasty mittens start to settle in. He can’t get her to admit her satisfaction out loud but when he turns around to fetch the tea, he catches her pressing the mittens to her cheeks.

He is not yet satisfied with the temperature of the tea so she certainly won’t be. He leaves it to continue to a boiling point. As he does so he fetches a hat. He is thankful for her top knot, it saves him the trouble of having to sweep her long locks out of the way while he fixes the hat over her ears.

“Sokka, I already have a hood, I don’t need…”

“Frostbitten ears and fingers.” He fills in. “I know that you like matching things but I don’t recommend losing an ear or another pinky.” 

Azula shoots him a vaguely humored pout and clutches her left hand. Without giving himself a chance to second guess, he takes that hand a gives it a small kiss. He quickly retracts to check on the tea. “Alright, I think that it’s done.” He pours a cup for her and gives her one final once over. “And I think that you’re all set…” He pauses. “Maybe we should get you another coat?” 

“Another coat?” Her brows crinkle and her nose scrunches. “I don’t think that I’ll be able to move if you add any more layers.” 

Alright, so he might have overdone it a little. 

“If anything, I should take one off.”

He chuckles. “Okay, I think that we’re ready to go.” He takes her hand and leads her out and into the snow. It isn’t all too late in the night and, with luck, the luminous display will settle her mind enough for her to sleep. He hopes that her nights will be less insomnia riddled. He would be lying to himself if he said that it wasn’t at least slightly annoying to be woken every night. He just hopes that he doesn’t express as much. 

Sokka finds that standing with her is more than enough to make up for that. 

She is particularly quiet as she gazes up at the dancing sky. He can’t tell if she is actually looking at the delicately churning curtains or if she is staring at the stars and moon. They are particularly bright tonight. 

He has trouble finding a place in the sky that isn’t strewn with cosmic glitter. The moon itself hangs in the sky like a silvery saucer. Its surface throws glimmering light over the fallen snow. 

For once there isn’t a flake in the air. 

It is just as well because he doesn’t have to squint against falling snow to enjoy the lights. All things considered, it is a rather warm night for the poles. He almost feels bad for bundling Azula up so heavily until he notices the ever so slight shiver over her body. “You getting cold?” He asks. 

She shakes her head, “I’m not cold.” The teeny tremor in her voice betrays that fib. 

“Come here.” He offers with a soft laugh and an eye roll. 

The princess wanders back to him, her gait made awkward by snow and a layer too many of clothing. He pulls her close, her back pressing into his chest. He holds her around the middle and rests his chin on her head. He feels her arms curl up to grip the ones he has around her. 

He had come out here to look at the lights but instead he is looking at her. At that rare moment where innocent delight is plain on her face. Even beneath the scarf, he can tell that she is smiling.

**.oOo.**

Azula can’t say that she has seen anything like it; turquoise folds over pink and pink cascades over teal. And then it seems to explode in shades of blue and magenta and hints of green and purple. They dance like silks on a clothesline caught in a summer breeze.

Now that she is truly observing the display she can understand why Sokka enjoys it so. It is just awe striking enough to pull her mind away from the freezing air. Just majestic enough to quiet the unrest in her mind. 

“I like them.” She finally says. It is something of an understatement. 

“I told you that you would.” Sokka replies, giving her a little squeeze. 

She pulls her gaze away from the lights and turns around to look up at him. She can see the curtains of light reflecting in his eyes. Kind eyes. Warm eyes. Frosty in color but warm no less. His smile is rather charming too, especially when it reaches those eyes. It has been a while since she has seen him so happy. Maybe she hasn’t seen him this happy before now. 

“I’m really happy that you like them, I was worried that you didn’t and I was just bothering you.” He says. “The first time I tried to show you them.” 

She shrugs. “I was just sick and…” she looks back at the vast expanse of the tundra. “Sick and waiting for something to shamble its way out of there.” She admits. 

“Fair enough.” He replies. “What’s bothering you tonight.” 

She presses her lips together and hovers her hand above his chest. 

“Still?” He asks. “I told you that it was alright.”

“It isn’t alright with your sister. Or Mai and TyLee. I know what they think of me…” 

Sokka sights. “Kat just gets protective, ever since mom died…”

“Your mother is dead?” She probably should have known as much. Thinking back on it, she’d only ever seen his father around. Perhaps she’d thought that the woman had simply been away, off somewhere else in the world. Or maybe it is simply that she hadn’t had much time to connect those dots. 

“Yeah. It was the war, when I was just a kid.” 

“How young were you?” 

“Maybe seven or eight. Something like that…” He trails off. 

“My therapist says that I have mother troubles too, I don’t remember them though.” At her slight laugh he gives one of his own. 

“Anyways, ever since  _ that  _ happened, Katara’s been all protective and motherly. She doesn’t want to lose anyone else. She just needs some time to cool off.” He shrugs. “She’ll see the whole picture once she does.” 

“What about Mai and TyLee?” She asks. “They’ve been looking at me as though I’m going to set them on fire at any minute.”

“That’s probably because they haven’t seen you like this yet.”

“Like what?”

“Sniffling and buried in a ridiculous amount of parkas.”

“That is your fault?” She crosses her arms.

“The parkas are, yeah.” He agrees with what she believes is self satisfaction. 

“Maybe I should have asked them to join us…” She thinks aloud. 

“I think that there will be other times for us to talk as a group.” Sokka shrugs. “They just need to get used to the new you.” He cups a hand over her cheek. 

“I suppose.” She replies. She watches her words trail away on the mist that slips from between her lips. It reminds her that it is absolutely frosty out.This time she doesn’t think that the distraction of the lights will be able to take the bite away.

“You’re cold.” 

This time it isn’t posed as a question and she doesn’t plan on lying about it anyways. 

“Let's get back inside then.”

“How long do you usually watch them for?” She looks back up as they begin to walk back. 

“An hour or so.” 

“In this weather?” 

He shrugs again, “I’m used to it.”

Perhaps she should make a goal of building up her cold tolerance. 

“I bet that I wouldn’t last as long as you on a beach.” He points out. 

“True.” She cuts him a smug smile; as smug as she can make it anyhow with the icy air practically freezing her face into stiffness. 

She stuffs her hands into her pockets and her mind begins to ruminate on Katara, Mai, and TyLee again. She finds it hard to believe that they will get used to her, especially if Sokka’s tales of her are to be believed. And she thinks that they most certainly are. “What if they don’t get used to me?” 

“You’re going to have a whole boat ride to the Earth Kingdom to show them that you’re a fun person to talk to.” 

Her belly flops just thinking about being trapped on a boat and in another awkward dinner conversation. She might just have to get used to them too. She is coming to realize that socializing doesn’t exactly come easily to her. That she likely comes on too strong. That she is too blunt. And that she sometimes isn’t sure what to say at all. It is this that finally compels her to ask the other thing that has been occupying her for quite some time. “Do you love me?” She asks it quickly enough and abruptly enough for him to ask her to repeat herself. It is harder the second time, now that it isn’t an impulse question. But she manages to inquire again.

**.oOo.**

Sokka’s strides slow to a halt. The question has thrown him. He supposes that the question was just waiting to be asked. Though he didn’t expect her to ask so soon. As so, he hasn’t yet figured out how to answer it.

The part of him that still has hopes for Suki is reeling. And the thought that Azula recovering her memories will nullify everything else that they’ve been through still nags him persistently. And yet when he looks upon her, he only feels a pleasant flutter. Especially when She stares up at him like that. 

He swallows. 

At his hesitation, her face seems to fall. 

He swallows harder still.

He has delayed too long. He isn’t sure if it is hurt or anger that he sees on her face. Whichever it is, it carries her the rest of the way back to his home. He watches her disappear inside. 

At her departure he is sure that he does love her. It wouldn’t hurt him so much if he didn’t.


	31. Past Scourge

Sokka groans, she still hasn’t spoken to him since the night they’d looked at the lights. She isn’t being hostile, but Raava he’d almost prefer it to her cold shoulder. Frankly, he never thought that a firebender could be that cold, perhaps he hadn’t wrapped her in enough parkas after all. 

He watches Azula emerge onto the deck and tries a little wave. She returns it with a degree of nonchalance. 

Alright, he decides to himself, so maybe she isn’t giving him the cold shoulder but she has definitely been distant. They are two days into their boat ride and she hasn’t come to him with her sleep troubles at all. 

The worst of it is that he isn’t entirely sure why.

Had not answering her right away really been such an offense? 

“Can we talk?” He asks as she passes. 

“No.” It is a single word and she slips away. Slinking across the deck as though he hadn’t spoken at all. He watches her find TyLee and reluctantly invite herself into whatever discussion the girl is having with Mai. He supposes that he is happy for her, she has managed to bring herself closer to the two of them again, even if she lacks some of the social graces. 

“You two fighting again?” Katara asks. 

“No!” He answers. “Yes? I don’t know. She’s just not talking to me. But she hasn’t lit my close on fire yet, so that’s a good sign, right?” 

“Well what were you talking about before she stopped talking to you?” Katara inquires. 

Sokka gulps. His face might be going a shade pink. He isn’t sure if he should tell her. How the hell is he supposed to break the news that he is falling for the person who’d persistently attacked them for the longest time. 

“Well?”

“I uh...she asked me if I…”

“If you…” she encourages with a hand gesture. 

“If I love her.”

Katara’s mouth falls agape. “And what did you say?” She sputters, her voice a hair higher than usual. 

“Nothing.” He replies. “I didn’t say anything and then she stomped--sort of, she kind of tried to stomp but her feet kept getting stuck in the snow and so she had to just walk--back to our house.” 

Katara sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, giving him the impression that he is absolutely clueless. “You can’t just say nothing when someone asks you if you love them!”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” 

“Answer the question, Sokka.”

**.oOo.**

“Awww,” TyLee gushes and Azula has to turn away to hide the light shade of pink creeping over her cheeks. “And what did he say!?”

“He didn’t say anything, TyLee.” She crosses her arms. 

“Hmmm…” She hums. 

“What am I supposed to make of nothing?”

“That he doesn’t like you and you should find someone who isn’t a moron.” Mai shrugs.

“He’s not a moron. Unlike your boyfriend.” Azula grumbles. 

Mai shrugs again, “all of the men on this boat are idiots.” 

“I don’t know.” TyLee replies. “Maybe he didn’t reply because he’s still thinking about it. Or maybe he  _ does  _ love you! And he just got shy.”

“Why would he get shy?” Azula asks. 

“Because you’re...you.” She replies. “You’re an intimidating person.”

And yet he has seen her bawling and shaking like a child or a cornered and wounded animal. He can’t imagine that, that is intimidating. 

“And you’re pretty and smart and maybe he doesn’t think that he can match up!” 

Her flattery is rather nice, but she takes it with a grain of salt. Granted, she has decided that TyLee is the prefect person to ask about this. At the very least, she is enthusiastic. Azula finds herself glad that she has chosen to try to mend things between the two of them. Though she wonders if it was a feat only made possible because there is such a large portion of her missing.

“I think that you should ask him again.” She smiles. 

“And this time give him time to answer.” Mai adds in a monotone drawl. 

**.oOo.**

She ought to do it, she ought to ask him again, or at least resume talking to him. Her mind is loud again, loud and full of dark visions as it takes her through moments she has already lived. She wants to wander in by Sokka again but she doesn’t want to leave him with the impression that she is using him. That she only speaks to him when she needs comfort. So her legs carry her back to Zuko’s cabin. As of late, when the phantom tingling in her arms worsen and the past replays itself in her nightmares, she finds herself pestering her brother. He lets her take the top bunk and talks to her until her words break off into a sleepy murmur. 

It isn’t the same as spending the night with Sokka but it is its own kind of reassuring. This time she doesn’t bother knocking. He is still awake and doesn’t question her as she climbs back onto the top bunk. 

He gives her a few moments to settle in before asking, “what do you want to talk about tonight?”

Tonight has been ludicrously rough, her nightmares much more potent and she wants to attribute it to her hatred of the sea combined with how recently she’d relived her days in the compound. “Can you tell me about your scar?” She imagines that this is a topic that will have strength enough to keep her attention. 

She hears him suck in a deep breath. 

“Nevermind.” She mumbles. 

“No. It’s fine, I’ll tell you.” He replies and then he goes silent again. 

“Let me guess, that’s my fault too?” She asks softly. 

“No!” He replies quickly and much more hushed he adds, “it was our father’s fault.”

Her brows furrow. Their father. Truth be told she hadn’t thought much of him. Hadn’t even considered how bizarre it is that she hasn’t seen either of her parents yet. There is so much going on in her mind… “why haven’t I met them yet.”

“Because Ozai--father is in prison and mom is visiting our uncle in the Earth Kingdom.”

“Did he go to prison for burning your face?”

Zuko shakes his head. “Sokka told you about the war right.” 

“Parts, yes.” She answers. “He only really told me about my part in it.”

“Well it was our father who sent you out to go after me. He’s the one who…” he trails off. “I think that a lot of what you did was his fault. He was always turning us against each other.”

Azula inhales, her chest constricting slightly at that mention.

“He was evil. He’s still evil, but he’s evil in prison now. He was going to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground so that he could rule over everything. And he had you go out and conquer things in his name and you. You  _ liked  _ it.” 

Azula curls her hands into the fabric of the pillow. In and of itself it is disturbing to know. But that she had managed several successes… “what’s wrong with me?”

She can sense him going tense on the lower bunk. “I didn’t mean that. I mean…” he breaks off with a frustrated groan. “I don’t think that you’re like him. For a while I did, but you’re different now.” 

This only sinks her heart further. “When we get to the Foggy Swamp, I was thinking that we can just shut the facility down, make the arrests, and be on our way. I think that I’m better off without my memories. And besides, I’d rather not risk losing the ones I have now if something goes wrong.”

“Don’t say that.” He says.

“People like me more now, I’d rather have that. Anyways, my past doesn’t exactly sound cheerful.”

“If you’re worried about going back to the way he--father--wanted you to be I don’t think that you should. I think that everything that’s happened since you lost them will matter more to you than what came before that.”

Azula draws her legs to her chest. 

“And if it helps, even before you lost your memories I realized you weren’t like him. Ozai is a lost cause. You’re more like me.” He pauses. 

“Why would you say something so rude?” Azula snickers. 

“Gee thanks.” He grumbles, she detects a faint trace of amusement before his tone goes serious again. “Did Sokka ever tell you what  _ I _ did before making friends with Aang?” 

“No.”

“Well for one thing, I burned a whole village on Kyoshi Island. It was where Sokka’s girlfriend lived. And I sent a hitman to kill them all…”

“Oh wait, he did mention that.” She mumbles more to herself. “The hit man anyways. I can’t picture you as the type to burn a whole village down. Not on purpose anyways.”

“Ha. Ha.” 

She snickers again. 

“My point is, our father got us both to do awful things. But I had mom and uncle. You only had him. I’m glad that he’s not around you anymore or me. Because you have a chance now.” 

“I suppose that that’s good to know.” She notes, not even conveying half of the relief that is swelling in her chest. She supposes that she can’t be horrible to her core if it brings her that much comfort knowing that she hadn’t been completely unsalvageable before the Vine Facility. 

“Anyways, I knew that our father was evil from the start. I was thirteen when he challenged me to an Agni Kai.”

“Agni Kai?” Azula sits up and climbs down to join him on the bottom bunk. He sits up and makes room. 

“Oh right, you don’t remember what those are.” He says aloud. “It’s a one on one dual between two firebenders. It’s a fight for honor and ends when one opponent burns the other.” 

Azula nods. “Father wanted to hurt you.” It isn’t a question but rather a repetition of what she already knows.

“Yeah. A grown man wanted to burn his thirteen year old son because he spoke out of turn. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fight our father because I...still loved him. I believed in him.” He shakes his head. “And even if I could have fought him, I didn’t stand a chance.” She can see tears glistening down his cheeks and thinks that perhaps she should reach out. But she also thinks that doing so would be awkward. So instead she holds her hands in her lap and stares at her palms. 

“And while I was looking up at him, begging him not to do it…” He touches his fingers to the scar. “You and uncle were there.” 

She can add that to the list of things better off unmemorized. 

“After that he banished me. Told me that he didn’t want to see my face again because I’m an embarrassment. You found me a few days later and were able to convince him to let me have a ship and a crew and uncle.”

“I did something good?”

He gives a soft smile and nudges her on the arm. “Don’t look so surprised. I told you that you’re not like him.” 

“Our father burned you…” she trails off. Suddenly she wonders what he has done to her. Just as much, she doesn’t want to. “A man with honor wouldn’t fight a child. Or anyone significantly below his skill level.” 

“You always fought me.” He points out. 

“Then I must have found that you could hold your own against me. Even if you couldn’t win.” She shrugs. 

“You think that I’m a good firebender?” 

“I haven’t see you do it much, but if you can fight me and come out alive then you have to be at least somewhat competent.” She pauses to consider the alternative. “That or we’re both horrendously subpar.” 

He laughs. “You’re not subpar.” 

She stands up and heads for the ladder. 

“Thanks.” 

“It’s the truth. You can’t be that bad if…”

“No. For telling me that it’s father who has no honor.”

“Oh, yes, well that is also the truth.”

He laughs once more. “You’re still terrible at being comforting.” Before she can climb up he adds, “but somehow that is kind of comforting.” 

“Glad that I can help?”

“If you have trouble sleeping, I’m down here.”

“Yes, I know. Good night, Zuzu.” 

She hears him give an exaggerated groan. “Why is it that no even a memory wipe could erase dumb that nickname!?”

“Because it holds more power than the both of us.” She murmurs. “Good night, Zuzu.”

“Good night.” 

Azula pulls the covers up to her chin. She thinks that she might just have a peaceful night after all. She only needs to sort things out with Sokka. In the meantime it is a kindness to know that she isn’t resented. That, even at her darkest she hadn’t been so truly terrible that her own brother could write her off. Again she finds herself toying with the idea of calling her memories back. She sighs and decides to put that line of thinking aside for the night and take comfort in ridiculous nicknames and potential and highly cringeworthy sibling bonding. 


	32. Into The Fog

Azula cringes as she pulls her foot up. It comes free with a wet slurp and some of the sludge splashes onto her face. 

“Gross.” Zuko comments. He is more caked in mud than she, likely because each time his foot gets stuck he cusses and flails about until Katara waterbends him free. 

“You have to stop that, Zuzu.” She comments. “It only makes things worse.”

“I didn’t realize that you were worried about me.”

“I’m not.” She shrugs. “I am worried about the amount of mud you are slinging into my hair.” She picks out a dried chunk for emphasis. 

“Sorry.” He mutters with a slight blush.

“So, swamp or tundra?” Toph asks. 

“Death by platypus-bear mauling.” Azula grumbles. 

“Ugg…” Mai wanders up, “I’ll take one platypus-bear mauling too.”

“You guys have no appreciation for the good things.” Toph comments with an exaggerated satisfied sigh. “This is the life.” She flops herself down, arms tucked behind her head, into a puddle of silt. 

Azula’s nose bunches up. Sokka bursts out laughing. “Toph, you should see their faces right now! Even TyLee is horrified.”

“Please tell me that we’re getting close. I think that I have a pentapus stuck to the back of my leg.” Katara winces. 

Azula shakes her head. “You’d know if we were.” She isn’t the type to shout gleefully, but she can almost see herself doing so upon getting out of this putrid, stagnant water.

“Hey guys, check this out!” Aang exclaims.

“What the hell is that?” Zuko asks. 

“I don’t like it.” Azula frowns.

“I think that it’s kinda cute.” Aang says. In his arms he cradles one of the petapus that have been harassing Katara. But this one has a sixth tentacle and rather vicious looking teeth. 

“Maybe if you’re the sort of guy who thinks that piranha-eels are cute.” Mai comments. 

“They kind of are…” Aang trails off. 

Azula can’t help but feel faintly unnerved. Perhaps it is mere coincidence but she can’t help but wonder if the Vine Research Facility has been conducting research on the swamp’s wildlife. She rises back to her full height and clears her throat. With everyone’s attention back on her she speaks, “There are several compounds located throughout this swamp. I am not certain that all of them are directly linked with myself and the deaths of Jeon Jeong and Chan.” She takes pause to let it sink in. “I believe that we should break off into groups; Mai, TyLee and Zuko in the first group. Aang, Katara, and Toph in the second. Sokka and I will be in a third group…” she notices him cringe. 

She doesn’t let the frown she is feeling work its way onto her face. No matter, there are things that she wishes to discuss with him in private and this may be the only chance she can buy herself for a while. She would rather not enter any compounds with other matter cluttering her mind. 

“We will each take a team of imperial firebenders. But I recommend leaving them to wait while you check the facilities. Stealth is key.” As an after thought she adds, “does anyone have a problem with this plan?”

Sokka clears his throat and she feels her heart sinking. “Aang, Katara, and I have been in this place before, so we know what to expect. I think that Katara should go with Zuko and Mai and that Tylee should go with Aang and Toph. That way everyone has someone who knows what to expect.”

The nervous jitters subside. “Yes, that is a good point, thank you Sokka. Are there any other problems?”

“Sounds like a sturdy plan to me.” Toph shrugs.

“Wonderful.” Azula replies. “If you find your facility today, the goal is to enter it and determine the type of research that takes place within it without being seen and then report back. We will only begin storming the place and making arrests after all three compounds have been found.” She holds her hands on her hips as she glances from one person to the next. “We will meet back at camp during the night to discuss findings. Having set up in the heart of the swamp, this shouldn’t be too difficult.” She pauses once more, “Katara mentioned a tribe that lives in this swamp, apparently they like to migrate around a lot. If you should come by them, see if they know anything of the compounds.” 

Though Azula is hesitant to ask anything of them after Katara noted that they have rather...primitive lifestyles and speak rather illiterately. 

**.oOo.**

“I don’t know what I did this time.” Sokka mutters. “Actually, I sort of do, I was talking to Katara about it.”

“You  _ Katara  _ about that!?”

“I needed advice. I figured that your a woman and she’s a women...” he trails off. “But then I remembered that you’re...really different.”

“And what did she say?” Azula inquires. 

“That I should have just answered your question.” 

“Yes, you should have.” She replies. “I would rather just have you tell me no than…” She gives a soft grunt as she yanks her foot out of the sludge. 

“I wouldn’t.” Sokka says. 

Azula crinkles her brows. “Of course you wouldn’t. You like to sugar coat things and ‘spare my feelings’. Everyone likes to…”

His expression is curiously kind. “I wish you would trust me.” 

“I’m not good at that.” She mutters. 

He brings their walking to a halt. “Ask me again.”

“Ask you again?”

He nods. 

She isn’t sure that she enjoys this game and almost wishes that she had chosen to put Zuko in their party. Reluctantly she asks, “do you love me.” It is harder the second time, much more awkward and much less natural. 

He brushes her bangs out of the way, she hadn’t even realized that the swamp has plastered it to her face. His right hand cups her cheek and his left tilts her head up. He presses a gentle and drawn out kiss to her lips.

He pulls back and smiles at her. “Do you want a vocal answer too or was that good enough?”

She coughs, “that will do just fine.” 

She admires him for being able to kiss her lips for so long even with them being musky with swamp water. She supposes that, that alone is proof enough for her.

“Good.” He smiles and gives her damp hair a ruffle.

“That’s so cute.” One if the imperial firebenders remarks.

She cuts them a glare and then looks back to Sokka. “We’ll continue this conversation on our own time.”

He takes his hand in hers. Suddenly, walking through the swamp is much more bearable. Though the mosquito-flies still make a morsel of her and the fetid waters still soaks her clothes, she begins to feel more at ease.

It no longer goes around and around in her head, the possibility that she has lost Sokka. Even if he hadn’t kissed her she wouldn’t have wanted to lose him as a friend.

She inhales—taking it a potent whiff of bog water and fish—she can enter the compound with a clear head and nothing else on her mind.

“So what am I to expect from this swamp?”

“Anything honestly. It manifests fears and things you desire.”

“Of course it does.” It is just what she needs before entering a place where her fears truly reside.

She is that much more thankful that she won’t be alone. She tightens her hold on his hand.


	33. Who You Are

Azula slaps her her arm, she watches the mosquito-fly buzz away and resents that she has slapped herself for nothing. It is growing harder to focus on the map between all of the insects swarming her and the increasing heaviness of her waterlogged attire. Next to her Sokka is battling his own cloud of bugs and seems to be faring worse than she. His flailing does nothing to fend them off. 

“It’s not that much further, is it?”

“Sokka, we’re not even close.” 

He groans. 

The day is humid and muggy she can see it in shimmering waves in the air. Or maybe that is the beginning of the swamp’s games. All around her, from within the tangled cicada-mantis sing their unrelenting drone. It is a constant and never ceasing hum that plays in the background under various croaks and chitters. Every now and again, some type of fish springs itself from the water and flops back in. On one occasion one smacks Sokka from behind leaving him to grumble, “and here I thought that nature hated you.”

She shrugs, “it hasn’t thrown a fish at me yet.” She hopes that she hasn’t spoken too soon. The carpe had struck Sokka hard enough to leave a scaly imprint upon his skin that grows increasingly red. 

“If only Katara were here.” He grumbles. 

Azula must admit, some waterbending on her collection of mosquito-fly bites would be nice. The skin on her arms is growing quite lumpy with them. She has quite a few of them upon her neck as well. 

“Ugg, If I have to pick one more elbow leech off…” she plucks a sizable one off of her calf. “This one didn’t even aim right.” 

Sokka busts out laughing. She tosses the leech at him. He gives a little yelp when it splats on the back of his head and falls back beneath the surface. At his exclamation, she returns with a laugh of her own. 

“This swamp is dumb.” He grumbles. “I hate swamps.” He tries to continue in a stomp but his feet suction into the mud. 

“Come on, stop doing that.” She rolls her eyes as she helps to free him from the sludge. 

“This is so gross.” He squeals. She can’t exactly make fun of him for that being as she is about a minute away from doing the same. Frankly it is undignified to be stuck waltzing through bog water. 

If Sokka had told her that she were a princess now, she wouldn’t have bought it.

“Hey, so I need to make a stop, if you know what I mean.” 

“I’ll wait here.” She props herself up against a tree. As he wanders off to take care of himself, Azula inspects her nails. She cringes, they have so much mud caked under them. Though she doesn’t think it would be worth cleaning them now when they will only grow dirty once more. When she grows bored with her nails she tosses a little flame around. 

“You almost done?” She calls. Honestly, she isn’t sure why it always takes him so damn long to go to the bathroom. Though this time, ‘getting lost in there’ is a very real possibility. “Sokka?” She heaves herself away from the tree. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka jolts, “Suki?” He speaks just quietly enough to not draw Azula’s attention. And then he collects himself. He pulls up his pants as Suki’s image fades. “Ha. Ha. Nice try swamp, I know your tricks.”

“And yet you fall for them anyhow.” Comes that slick, sweet voice he knows so well. 

“I thought that you were going to wait by the tree.” 

She rolls her eyes, and puts her hands on her hips. “You took too long.” She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “This way.” She beckons him forward. 

“I thought that we were going…” He points back they way they’d been heading before he’d gone off to answer nature’s call. 

“Your break gave me a chance to study the map better. It’s this way.” She slowly trails her fingers over his neck. 

“What are you doing?” He asks. “Not right now.” 

“Boring.” She sighs with another eye roll and a dismissive wave. He tags along as she slinks deeper into the swamp where the gloom is notably thicker. The hum of the cicada-mantis grows fainter and he shudders. 

“Would you mind making a little fire?” He asks.

“We can make all the fire you’d like.” She tosses a look back at him and winks. 

“Seriously.” He grumbles. He is beginning to think that he shouldn’t have confessed his love for her, if he knew that it would be a go-ahead for this. “I want a real fire, it’s really dark in here.”

“A real fire?” She cocks her head and a small smirk plays at the corner of her mouth. A feral, vicious smirk. Her voice dips into a growl. “I’ll give you a real fire.” She holds her fingers up to a low hanging strand of ivy. It is as tiny as a match flame, but the world around him is ablaze in an instant. 

He cries out.

**.oOo.**

Azula snaps her head in the direction of the shout and curses. Of course the dolt has wandered into what has to be the gloomiest, dankest, most inhospitable part of the swamp. 

“Sokka, where the hell are you?” 

He doesn’t answer, leaving her to wonder if the swamp is muffling her voice. The acoustics of the place are dreadful. She pushes her way through the thickets, towards where she thinks that she his voice may have come from. But it is very plausible the the swamp is distorting its direction. 

She scans the dimness around her, finding reassurance when she spots a path of battered vines. Sokka must have taken his machete to them. She follows the path of chopped vines until they fall short. She rubs her temples in agitation. 

“You foolish girl.” Comes a voice, though she can’t place from exactly where. She shudders, she thinks that she knows this voice. At the very least, she is sure that she  _ should  _ know it. She rubs her temples as it comes again, “did you think that you could get away from me.”

The voice must belong to the head of the Vine Research Facility, or at least one of the many that have operated on her. 

Her tummy flutters with anxiety. How had she downplayed that she is in their domain? Back in the tundra it was all that she dreaded, them emerging from the snow to drag her back to the facility. Somehow it had slipped her mind to fear them emerging from behind one of the mangroves. 

“It’s that boy.” The voice scowls. “He distracts you.” It finds a new part of the mire to lurk in. “Come back to me and we’ll get you back on track.” 

Her stomach sinks further still. “Perhaps I could if you’d stay still.” 

“But of course.” It replies smoothly. “I’m over here, just in front of you.” 

She pushes back a curtain of hanging moss and vines. 

**.oOo.**

Her laughter echos in his ears as he shambles out of the ring of fire. He finds himself waist deep in cloudy brown water. He tries to catch his breath, to calm his unease. But that smirk, that cruel smile and that wicked glimmer in her eyes...he can practically see it reflected in the water. 

He slumps down against a tree stump, trying to remind himself that it wasn’t her. Not the real her. 

“But it can be.” Her voice is suave and cunning as she stoops down to drawl lazily into his ear. “It will be soon.” Her hands trail down his neck and over his shoulders. She massages them carefully. “Do you really think that I’m going to let myself be buried? Do you think that a few massages and backrubs are going to be enough to keep  _ me  _ at bay?” She brings her hands down his arms. “I’m much stronger than that.” She purrs

“You’re not her, you’re not…”

“But I am.” She carefully moves her pointer across his chest. “I was here first and I’ll be here again.”

“That’s not true, it doesn’t have to be.”

“Honestly.” She says flatly. “What you have is fake. It means nothing.” 

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m me. Who knows me better than I?” 

He swallows. “Right now, I do.” 

She chuckles it is a low and sinister thing. “Well aren’t you bold?” She asks. “How about this, take me there and we’ll find out whose right.” She nods her head to the left. 

He follow the nod and finds himself face to face with a drainage pipe. 

“Follow that and you’ll find the compound. You’ll find yours truly?” She gestures about her body. Her dainty and measured chuckles break of into a wild fit of laughter. The swamp water around her bubbles and boils. 

**.oOo.**

Azula peers up at the man. He is large and imposing and built like a soldier. His hair ripples down his back in lush black waves. He boasts a beard that is just as pampered and pomp. He reaches out and pushes her bangs to the side, “look at you, you’re filthy.” He tsks. 

“I’m in a swamp.” She points out. 

“So am I.” 

She is certain that she should know him. She brings herself to look him in the eyes and her stomach turns all over again. Those eyes, their hue, their shape…

She swallows. 

His hand brushes over her hair. “It’s time to stop acting like a child.” 

“Father?” 

His lips curve up. 

“You burned Zuzu…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I suggest that you don’t disappoint me or I might have to do the same with you.”

“You won’t.” She shrugs. “You can’t. You aren’t real.” 

“At least you still have your wit about you. For now.” 

“For now?” 

He beckons for her to follow. But she keeps herself rooted in place.

“Don’t be so stubborn.” He growls. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Help me?”

**.oOo.**

“I think that we can still make it work.” These are her parting words. “Really, we’re the same, you and I. We’re both monsters. We’re both  _ killers _ .” It is a harsh whisper and it echos faintly as her body shifts. 

The muscles in her arms twitch grosequely as her lean frame swells. The muscles she has now are too bulky for her otherwise petite frame. He follow the length of her right arm, it ends in glistening metal. 

When he looks back at her face, he finds a different one entirely. Three eyes burn into him, but only briefly before his body contorts and finds itself buried beneath the clouds and flames of an explosion. 

Sokka backs up, tripping over a rock he lands hard on his tailbone. Water soaks into his pants.That which doesn’t invade his clothing begins to gurgle and bubble. A dozen faces rise with glassy eyes and gaping mouths. They look up from the waters, expressions strained as they fight to keep at least their noses above water. They reach out desperately and grasp at the air.

“What did we do?” They chant in unison. “What did we do.”

“It was my birthday…” He might have laughed at the absurdity if he weren’t so thoroughly disturbed. 

Suki shakes her head. “I can’t be with a murderer.”

**.oOo.**

“Follow me.”

“Not a chance.” Azula stands with her hands clasped behind her back. 

His face bunches up in rage. “You dare defy me.”

She shrugs, “you can’t do anything to me. Nothing real, anyways.” 

His face smooths once more, this is when ice works its way into her veins. “Oh, I can do things that are very real.” He throws back another curtain of vines, pleasuring her with the view of a hunched figure. 

Her father steps to the side and continues to hold the vines parted. If he could hold them in place they must also be a part of the illusion. She watches the figure shift, its shoulders tremble. They tremble violently before the figure looks up. Azula meets her gaze and goes tense. She doesn’t like the unhinged look of those eyes. 

The figure screams. The sound of it is drowned beneath a fountain of blue flame. Azula bunches her hands and holds herself up right, looking away only to meet her father’s merciless stare. She turns back feeling dizzy and ill. “It’s not real.” She repeats. 

“Oh, but it is, just not in this moment.” Her father shrugs. “This is who you are. You are an animal.” Another voice wraps itself around her father’s. It is a soft feminine one, “a monster.” 

And in the same way that she knows that he is her father, she knows that what she is seeing is a manifestation of the truth.

“I can give the rest of your memories back to you.”

“I don’t want them.” She shouts, sounding almost as shrill as the screaming figure in front other. It is the first time she has managed to admit it out loud.

“But you will take them. It is what you came here for.” He replies evenly, unphased by her outburst. “You are persistent, I’ve almost never seen you walk away from a mission with it left incomplete.”

He offers no further warning. Her head whips back as visions fill her mind. She sinks to her knees gripping her head as she exerts all of her energy into throwing her walls up. A few more memories leak in--a fight with her brother, “you should have feared me more”, a white room and a straight jacket--before she is able to block them out. 

She lays in the stagnant water, breathing heavily. Her head beats from the onslaught of memories and the effort of keeping them away. This mission is a mistake. She has made her decision; they will make the arrests and she will burn the research notes away. Her vision goes fuzzy.

**.oOo.**

Sokka sits with his head buried in his knees and his hands clutching his head. He can’t help but think of Azula who tends to assume the same position when in distress. He wonders if she is doing it right now. 

He is trembling so terribly that he can barely lift his head, let alone get to his feet. They are still around him chattering and begging for mercy. Please becoming more wet and gurgle as water fills their lungs. 

“Stop it!” He screams. “Stop it!” He doesn’t know how long he’d been screaming it. 

Long enough for him to be tracked down and found.

He watches her drag herself out of a tangle of vines. He knows that it is her--the  _ real  _ her-- because she is shaken and her eyes are watery. Even still, she is in a better state than he. She approaches as quietly as the marsh will allow and drops herself down next to him. 

He thinks that she wants to be held and talk about what is troubling her. Instead she wraps her arms around him and squeezes him tighter than anyone has in a while. He isn’t sure if she is trying to comfort him or herself. 

He can’t bring himself to hold her back. He wishes that he could, but part of him is still afraid. She is holding him now and burying her face in his hair. But as soon as they follow those pipes, her hands will move from abdomen to his throat. 


	34. Heart & Vine

For the time being, Sokka relishes her tender touches. For once it is she who is doing the holding and comforting. “What did you see, Sokka?” She murmurs. “I can’t talk you through it if I don’t know what you’re upset about.”

He doesn’t think that he should tell her that he’d seen her. Instead he says, “they were all over...during the war I dropped these people from an airship into the ocean. I didn’t really think about it, I guess that I thought that a boat would come for them. Some of them were wearing armor…”

“They were soldiers?”

He nods. 

“They were trying to kill you first?”

He nods again. 

“Sokka, everyone that you’ve hurt has tried to hurt you or your friends first.” 

“I didn’t hurt them, I killed them.” 

“And they would have done you and your sister the same if you hadn’t.” She replies. She grips him that much tighter. 

“They were still human.”

“So are you.” She replies. “And you have the humanity to feel bad for it. If you were a monster, it wouldn’t bother you. You wouldn’t have seen it embodied here.” 

He finally manages to get his erratic breathing under control. Once again he is thankful for her logical approach and her silky delivery of it.

“There are people who are actually, truly evil, Sokka.” She pauses. “And you’re not one of them.” Her voice seems to soften considerably. 

“You think that you are, don’t you?” He asks. 

“I don’t know.” She response after giving herself time to think it over. “Maybe.” He follows her stare as it sweeps over the pipes. “I don’t want them back.” 

“Your memories?”

“Correct.”

He wants to tell her that he disagrees, that he could love her even with her memories reawakened. But he can’t seem to work past the fears. He’d been a fool to let things kindle this warmly between them. 

“Yeah, maybe it’s better if you don’t. Maybe it was meant to be, ya know, that you lost them in the first place.”

**.oOo.**

Azula’s heart plummets, “yes, it probably was.” She replies. She isn’t sure why it stings so much. She is, after all, the one who had said it first. Perhaps she had been seeking reassurance, looking for him to tell her that she hadn’t been that horrifying. She loosens her hold on him and he catches her arms before she can withdraw them. 

“You aren’t mad at me are you?”

“What, no…” She replies, it is all that she can manage without her voice cracking. She swallows down that unreleased cry. “I said it first, right?” She can’t bring herself to say anything else. She gathers that he can’t either. 

The follow the pipelines in silence. Heavy silence that the swamp seems to amplify. At first she had thought that it was done tormenting them. And it was, as far as visions go. But it cloakes the sound of the cicada-mantis and the toad-squirrel croaks.

It is so very quiet and this time she doesn’t have the words nor will power to break it. 

She’d just got him to admit that he loved her and she is certain that they are already growing distant. He doesn’t hold her hand as tightly. And she doesn’t feel right letting him hold it at all. She has an itching impulse to dash off into the swamp and let herself disappear. 

To follow the manifestations and let her false father ‘get her back on track.’ 

She almost brings herself to a halt but ultimately decides that she needs to see this mission through. In part she is thankful for the drab and dismal mood, it somehow puts a shroud over her anxieties about entering the compound. 

Sokka flicks his boomerang and when it fully captures the attention of the guards, she gives them a quick stun. With disguises acquired they quietly scope out the compound. It isn’t particularly large but it is teeming with activity. 

Wheezing and smoking machines pump spirit vine juice through tubes throughout the facility. She watches their cogs whir and their pulley systems work diligently to keep the vine juice moving. Tubes of the stuff bubble, glowing a faint bright purple. Looking at it all, she nearly trips over a bump in the floor. 

She sees firebender and earthbender alike strapped to gurneys. Several of them are being pumped with vine juice. Azula cringes, imagining herself strapped down, veins beating and pulsing with a faint glowing purple. On one occasion she finds a waterbender, this girl bears the same scars as she. But there are more of them. 

She begins to feel dizzy.

Dizzy and her mind begins to sway and disconnect. 

Sensations are growing fuzzy and she feels as though she is drifting away from herself. Drifting away until she finds her face upon the body of the waterbender. She looks away and shakes her head.

“Are you alright?” Sokka asks. It is the first time she has heard his voice in well over two hours. 

“I’m fine.” She whispers. 

She has to be.

She has to keep it together. 

She clenches her fists. 

“Ah, there you two are!” Exclaims a suave voice. “I’ve been looking for you.” He points at Azula. Despite the chill that blossoms within her soul, raising each and every hair on her body, she keeps herself impassive. 

“Whatever for?” She asks, thankful for the stolen masks and identifying badges.

“We believe that we finally have a success and we would like you to record the notes since he was your patient.”

“Of course.” Azula replies. 

The man leads them down the hall and past a series of corridors. Along the walls snake veins of luminescent purple. A consent and steady flow of spirit energy that is readily available for tapping into throughout the complex. 

She watches a door swing open as another scientist makes her way out. Azula only briefly catches a flash of lush green. There is a massive clump of roots writing and thumping like her heart in the center of the floor. She notices that all of the tubes lining the walls, seem to branch out from that single mass.

She can’t quite be certain but she thinks that she had caught sight of bark...perhaps a tree trunk.

As she tags along and time image cements itself in her brain, she is confident in her theory. Along with the manmade tubes, she had seen vines. They don’t grow from beneath nor sprout up between tiles. There had been no tiles at all in that room. It’s floor is the swamp’s floor. They had built this room around a tree and the lumps she has been seeing in the ground are its roots. 

She shudders to herself. 

They are drawing energy from the swamp itself, a seemingly infinite supply of it. 

It is evil in a way that she hadn’t even seen in the impersonation of her father. It is madness beyond the look she’d seen in her own eyes.

The room they come to is worse still. It hosts massive shelves, nearly filled with jars. Jars that contain tissue that she refuses to try to identify. “He is over there.” The man points to an adjoined room. 

The boy within is bound to the floor by metal chains. The earthbender trembles as they enter. “Go on, boy, show them.” The doctor scoffs. “Firebend.”

“But I’m an earthbender.” He winces.

“Not anymore.” The man turns to them, speaking mostly to Sokka. “I know that you’re our newest team member, so I’ll fill you in.” He pauses. “This boy here, is the first success that we’ve had with an element swap. We have used the spirit vines and a few careful snips and cuts to the muscles surrounding his chi points to remove his earthbending abilities and fill them in with fire.” 

Azula’s stomach churns. “That’s brilliant.” 

The man laughs. “Of course you think so, you think that all of your plans are brilliant.” 

She forces her own laugh. “Because they are.”

“Yes well, Long Feng wants us to create benders who can master two elements. This is a start, but we will need to find a way to do the transplant without having to get rid of the person’s original element.”

“Well yes, of course.” Azula agrees. 

“Now.” He turns back to the earthbender. “Firebend.”

He lifts trembling hands and lets a small burst of fire come to them, he flinches back as they explode in his palm. His face, oh Agni, his face. She has never seen such a deep look of horror. She wonders if he is in terrible pain. She knows that he is when she catches sight of the blood leaking from his arms. 

Again the room seems to spin and the scars on her arms and belly begin to tickle unpleasantly. She feels faint. On her arms the boy’s blood is reflected. 

**.oOo.**

“Are you alright Aikara?” The man asks. 

“She actually hasn’t been feeling well this morning.” Sokka fills in for her. “I think that it’s one of these bug bites.” He points to a particularly large mosquito-fly bite on her neck. “I heard that these things carry some gross sicknesses.”

“Shall we have a look at her?” The man offers. 

Next to him Azula looks as though she may blackout at any moment. Still she holds herself up right. “No, I’m fine for now.” She pauses. “I will retire for the evening and…”

“Yes, that will be fine.” The man replies. “Take the night off, but we need you ready for when Long Feng visits tomorrow.” 

“Of course.” Azula agrees. If he didn’t know her so well, he wouldn’t have caught the slight tremor in her voice.

He puts his hand on her back. “Have a good night Dr...uh…”

“He’s having trouble getting your names remembered.” Azula excuses. 

“Dr. Ting-Lao.” He reminds. 

“Oh. I almost forgot.” Azula speaks and Sokka cringes. “How is Yion?” 

Ting-Lao smiles. “She has been giving us some trouble. We only let one of her sons go.” He shrugs. “She may have stolen the princess for us, but she wasn’t able to keep track of her. A half an effort earns only half an award.”

“Right, yes.” Azula replies. “That makes sense.” 

“Good day then. Rest well, Aikara.” 

At his departure, Sokka walks with her back down the hall. “Are you really okay?” He asks, preparing himself for a second round of trying to fend her off. 

“Just...get me out of here.” She replies. 

She doesn’t let herself blackout until they are a lengthy distance from the facility. He scoops her into his arms and carries her through the bog. 

**.oOo.**

It is dark when she comes to and she is greeted by a cloud of glowflies. They flash and blink around her like twinkling stars. She still feels faintly out of sorts, she sits up and shakes the fuzz out of her head. 

From the looks of it, they have made it back to camp. “Have you filled them in?” Azula asks. 

“Yup, and in full detail.” Sokka smiles. 

“Good, thank you.” 

“Yeah.” He rubs the back of his head. 

“Where is everyone else?” She asks.

“Either sleeping or finishing their dinner.” He pauses. “Speaking of…” He holds out a plate of well cooked fish. “It’s really tasty.”

Once again, she resigns herself to eating it. Her stomach has been well and unsettled by the day’s events and she hasn’t eaten all day. It still doesn’t make the fish taste any more tolerable. He seems to stare at the fire. At last he decides to break the quiet. “I shouldn’t have said that, I was scared.”

“Yes, nobody should speak kindly of this.” She gestures to her meal. 

He gives a slight laugh. “I’m not talking about the fish. I mean that I shouldn’t have told you not to get your memories back. They’re a part of you. I said that I loved you and that means that I have to love all of you, right?”

“Wrong.” She grumbles. 

“Wrong?”

“I don’t love that you snore when you sleep.” She shrugs. “You don’t have to love everything about a person. There are some things that you shouldn’t love.”

Sokka lays down next to her. “That’s the thing about love, Azula. Sometimes you can still do it even if you totally  _ hate  _ something about a person.”

“But what if you come to learn that you hate everything about that person?” She muses aloud, cupping her hands beneath her chest and eyeing the fabric ceiling of their tent.

Sokka rolls onto his side and reaches out to take her hand. “I don’t think that I will. The swamp shows you your fears, not real things.” 

“It showed me real things.” She trails off. 

“Like what?”

She continues eyeing the ceiling for a long time before finally telling him precisely what the swamp had shown her. 

“But the swamp didn’t account for this.” He half smirks before moving her hair to kiss her on the side of her neck. 

She hums quietly to herself, “I suppose that it hadn’t.” 

“We’re so close to figuring this whole thing out.” He declares. “How about this!? I said that it was meant to be that you lost your memories? Well, maybe we should let fate decide again; if we can get the research notes, I think that you’re meant to get your memories back. If this is another dead end, then maybe you are meant to not have them.” 

“I hate leaving things to chance.” She grumbles. 

“But you don’t seem to want to make a choice.”

She shrugs. “Fine, we’ll leave it to chance then.” 


	35. Power Play

They don’t make a move until a week or so comes to pass, when the reinforcements finally arrive. The invasion of the compounds is rather swift and quick, sheer number alone would have done well enough. But in reporting just how terribly they were ravaging and savagely harvesting from the spirit vines earned them aid from the Foggy Swamp Tribe. As it were, the Vine Research Facility had already been treading stagnant but very dangerous waters with vengeful spirits showing their teeth. 

The element of surprise had been lost when Ting-Lao had pieced it together that he hadn’t been talking to Aikara and the new recruit. No less, the man was easy to apprehend. In way of entrances and excites, there was only one. A poor design choice, undoubtedly, but a fortunate one for them. 

The only loose end left is Long-Feng. No doubt, the man will be elusive now that his compounds have all been compromised. But they have yet to figure out what the man’s exact goal is. Though Ting-Lao swears up and down that he personally is only in on it for the research. “Call it a crazed craving for knowledge.” He squeaks. “A morbid curiosity, I want to see exactly how chi works and how it flows from within. I want to know just what we can do...how far we can push things.” He rambles. “It is fascinating to see a born waterbender wield a flame or raise a boulder. I want to know the long term effects…” 

Sokka has heard quite enough, next to him he gathers that Azula has too. She stands with her arms folded, looking as cold and cross as she ever had in her war days. 

“I can’t say that research and fact hoarding is a bad thing.” She agrees. “But really, if you had any real love for knowledge, you’d be aware that it is unwise to provoke the spirits...and in their own territory too.” She mutters. 

“It’s not natural!” Sokka speaks up. “Only the Avatar can bend multiple elements.” And that isn’t even factoring how truly invasive it is to tamper with and alter one's chi and spirit energy. Aang has mentioned time and time again how wrong and how appalling it had felt to reap Ozai’s chi away. 

Something in Sokka’s stomach heaves. What if Ozai is in league with Long-Feng? What if he is trying to get his bending back. Sokka glances over at Azula again. And by taking it from his own daughter…

“What is Long-Feng’s goal?” Azula asks. 

“It is simple really.” Offers Ting-Lao. “Vengeance. He doesn’t like you, princess.” The man sneers. “And he doesn’t like the Avatar much more. Power as well, the Earth Kingdom should have been under his rule. His goal was to bend three of the four elements, create a new Dai Li of dual bending masters, and reclaim what should have been his before you stole that from him.” He spits. “We didn’t have to wipe your memories, but he was insistant. He wanted the powerful princess to know what it is to be under someone’s control.”

For once Azula doesn’t seem to go tense at the mention of a grittier time in her past. Instead she stares on at him with a degree of indifference. “If it was rightfully his, he’d be on the throne. And if he was fool enough to fail a power play the first time around then he is undeniably unsuitable.” She shrugs. 

Sokka still finds himself wishing that she wouldn’t speak like that, it still sends chills down his spine each time. But he had already told her that he would love her in spite of it. That he wouldn’t look at her differently…

“Long Feng is a great leader.” Ting-Lao declares. “Infinitely better than you were. You stole his Dai Li and then you banished them in a fit of psychotic rage. There’s something wrong with you. We knew it right when we took you.” 

Now her posture seems to change some. It is so subtle that he only knows it because he has come to know  _ her _ . She steps, seemingly nonchalantly, closer to Sokka. 

**.oOo.**

“Is that right?” Azula replies dryly. “Do tell me how you’d take to being captured.” She pauses, looking around. “I do recall a lot of screeching and kicking.”

The man’s face colors. 

“Really, I don’t think that anyone sensible would go down without a fight.” 

He scowls, “a fight is one thing. What you did...well I’ve never seen something so feral and unhinged. It was like we hadn’t even captured a human. Made it much easier to slice you open and listen to you weep about it.” 

She doesn’t think that a monster would feel as queasy as she does at the thought of it. Her fingers absently graze over the scars on her arms. 

“We watched you for weeks before that, you shouted at things we shouldn't see. Threw fire at them too. You were talking about how everyone was coming to get you. Your delusions made it harder for us too…” 

“Delusions.” Azula mutters. “Are they really delusions if they are true?”

The man laughs. “Perhaps if your mind had picked up on a real threat. You kept rambling about your mother and brother. And that look in your eyes. We knew that we were about to cage a beast.” 

Though it weaves a very heavy amount of unease into her belly, Azula doesn’t take the bait. She waves the comment off. “Clearly I am perfectly civilized.”

“For now.” He shrugs. “Really we did you a favor, cleansing that evil, broken mind of yours. You think that it won’t unravel again if you manage to get your memories back?”

This time her stomach sinks completely. It is one thing to prepare herself to be vindictive and spiteful again and another matter entirely to consider once again dealing with the things that had sent her to Fire Lake Institute. 

Sokka vowed that he could love her despite her past, but she thinks that she might be pushing her luck to ask him to accept her with a head full of delusions and visions. 

**.oOo.**

  
  


Azula holds up a dismissive hand. “Regardless, Long Feng isn’t fit to run anything and it isn’t for him to play with spirit energies.” She comes to stand directly before Ting-Lao. “It is a fool’s errand just like his first grab.” She turns away from him and to one of her imperial firebenders. “We are done for the day, lock him back up aboard the ship.” 

“Wait!” Sokka speaks up. 

She peers over at him and nods her head. 

“Are you guys working with Ozai too?”

“He offered us information and inside intelligence in exchange for the possibility of getting his bending back.” Ting-Lao replies. “Long Feng saw humor in delivering it to him with the knowledge that we’d harvested it from his precious golden child.” He glares at Azula.

Sokka wonders if Azula shares the relief he feels in knowing that her father, for once, hadn’t deliberately tried to sacrifice her. Though a good lot of his relief comes in know that they won’t have to deal with the former Fire Lord on top of everything else. 

He wanders over to Azula and rubs her shoulders as the imperial firebenders carry the doctor off. 

“You alright?” He asks. 

“You ask me that a lot.” She mumbles. “I’m not delicate. I…”

“You are a powerful fire breathing dragon. Got it. But I’m not, I am a sensitive guy and I like to make sure the people I care about are okay. I can’t lose another person.” 

“Sensitive…” she rolls her eyes. But her expression softens. “What do you mean by,  _ another  _ person?”

He has to laugh. Even in the middle of everything, she still has many questions. As he walks with her out of their makeshift interrogation tent, he tells her about his fleeting romance with Yue.

Frankly he is glad that she had brought it up, her sympathetic stares are reassuring. It helps him to decide that she has much more compassion than everyone else seems to account for. More than  _ she  _ seems to account for.

“I’m glad to have run into the both of you.” Dr. Yu-Kang greets. 

Sokka had nearly forgotten that she, Dr. Phan, and his team of healers and surgeons were aboard one of the several ships. 

“I am pleased to say that Yion’s family has been reunited with her and that she is on her way to recovery. The Fire Lord is going to have her on trial when she does.” She pauses. “Though right now I think that you might be more interested in other matters.” Her stare wavers between the two of them.

“Go on.” Azula prompts. 

“Dr. Phang and his team have been going over the research notes. We believe that they are going to be able to safely recover your memories. We will give them until we reach the homelands to study the notes and thoroughly plan out how to proceed. You should have your memories some time next week if you so choose.” 

“That’s...wonderful news.” Azula replies. 

He can hear the apprehension in her tone and he squeezes her hand. 

Evidently Dr. Yu-Kang is as perspective as ever. “You two have grown quite close, I think that, that will be very helpful for after her memories are retrieved.” She pauses and addresses Azula. “I’ve worked with you for around three years, princess. Having someone who you trust and someone who loves you is going to make a very big difference.” 

Azula seems to swallow and Sokka offers her a reassuring smile. 

“You were never a bad person, princess. But you always had yourself closed off.” 

“You aren’t worried that she’ll…” Sokka ponders his word choice. “Revert once she gets her memories back?” 

“I’m not terribly concerned, no.” Dr. Yu-Kang replies. “If nothing else, the princess is an intelligent young woman; I’m sure that she’ll realize that there is no sense in tarnishing salvaged relationships so that she can cling onto old resentments.” 

He wishes that he could tell what she is thinking. 

“Yes, I suppose that there is no sense in that…” she trails off. 

He thinks that it is the reassurance that she needs.

“I will let Dr. Phang know that you will be ready for the procedure. Have a good evening.” 

“Yes, thank you.” Azula replies. “Good night.” 

Sokka grins, she hadn’t hesitated to take the offer this time. Though he is certain that she still retains some level of anxiety. He can’t say that he blames her. They are going to be playing with her mind, quite literally. 

“What if I lose my memories again?” She vocalizes her final, unaddressed fear.

“Then I’ll tell you your life story the first time you ask for it this time around.” He laughs. 


	36. Magenta Haze

Azula lies back, the sofa is rather comfortable and the room is warmly lit, a stark contrast to the facility’s operating room. She supposes that, that is exactly the intent. The place looks much more like a living room than anything else, plush pillows surround her and curtains flutter in a breeze that is just gentle enough to only have the candle’s flames sputtering on their wicks. If she were to stand and look out the window, she would see a nearly full moon hovering alongside a spray of stars. It helps to know that she is in her own home.

She remains on the sofa, debating whether or not she’d like to find something to read. She decides not to, the text on the page would be buried under her racing thoughts. 

She wishes that Dr. Phang and his team would speed things up before she can change her mind about going through with this. She stares at the ceiling until she hears Dr. Phang’s voice. She sits herself up and readies herself for the procedure. 

“Good evening, princess.” He greets. She returns the greeting with as much pleasantness as she can muster with her nerves so on edge. “Are you ready for your treatment?”

Azula picks herself up off of the sofa, “I suppose that I am.” She isn’t truly ready at all. Not with the swamp’s visions so fresh in her mind. That crazed look and Ting-Lao’s mention of how he felt like he’d been handling an animal. 

It also comes back, Sokka’s recount of her striking down Aang. 

“I am pleased to hear it.” He smiles. “Dr. Yu-Kang mentioned that you are uncomfortable in rooms that remind you of those in the facility.”

She nods. “You can say that.” 

He returns the nod. “In which case, we will do the procedure here. If we find that you are having trouble with the procedure, physical or mental, I will administer a sleeping draught. When you wake up you will be in your bedroom. If you remain awake the whole time, we will have someone accompany you there; dizziness, confusion, and disorientation are very likely side effects. Does this sound good?”

“Yes. Aside from the side effects, anyhow.” 

The man gives a slight humored smile and withdraws a small herbal concoction. “It doesn’t have the most pleasant taste.” He warns. “Let me know if you’d like to take it."

“I can manage that.” She promises. Though the promise can also apply to the operation as a whole and a vow to herself that she won’t let her memories carry her back to a dismal place. 

“Lay back down if you will.”

Azula makes her way back to the sofa, takes a deep breath, and lays back down as someone wheels in a tub of sopping wet spirit vines.The anxious flutters already begin to rise in her chest. She bunches the fabrics of her night robes in her hands. 

“Try to relax if you can.” Dr. Phang instructs. “This won’t be painful but it will be cold. At worst it might be a little uncomfortable.” 

She nods. 

Though she can’t help but flinch when they place the first strand of vinces across her forehead. Suddenly the plush cushions have the feeling of a hard and chilly metal table. She feels two more strands, the meet her head with sloppy sounding sloshes. Some water drips down her temples, another trail drips into her eye. 

One of Dr. Phang’s assistance move to dab the streams away and wipe the liquid from her eye, with a muffled apology. Every now and again they have to catch another drop before it can reach her eye or seep between her lips. 

It keeps her somewhat grounded. 

“Alright.” Dr.Phang speaks. “Now that the vines are in place, I will begin using them to beckon the memories forward.”

“How does that work?” She asks.

“Fair question.” He replies. “Anyone who has a good sense of their own chi and can tune in with the chi around them can tap into the energy of the vines and by extension a person’s spirit energy. Only the Avatar can do this without the vines. The vines act as magnets to spirit energies and chi. We place three strands on the forehead to create an opening. Only one of them remains there. We use the other two to dig around in a sense. According to the research notes their glow will change color and intensity when memories are found.” He pauses. “I am wearing two strands myself…” 

She takes her eyes away from the ceiling to see that he does have a vine wrapped around his own head. Another longer vine is tied to that one and coils down his arm. He ties that one to the one on her head. “In a sense the vine links our minds so that I can detect your spirit energy and memories better.” He pauses. “Should you remain awake through this whole process, some of my memories may trickle into your head as well.”

“Fascinating.” She comments. Fascinating and frightening.

“Are you ready to begin?”

“I am.”

She takes a deep breath as he begins dipping into the spirit energy. Luminous purple trails down the vine like water through a funnel. When it reaches her head she can feel fingers of energy. 

Uncomfortable is exactly correct in describing the sensation. It has the sensation of a chunk of meat caught between her teeth, but the sensation comes from somewhere within her head. There is a presence, something that she itches to dislodge.

“I need you to let me in.” Dr. Phang speaks softly. “You put up a very high resistance even without trying.”

“I might have to take the sleeping draught.” She answers twice as quietly. She can’t see herself fully being able to let those walls down. 

He holds out the vial. “In this case, your memories will come to you while you sleep. When you wake they will feel like very vivid dreams for a while. You will know that these things happened to you, but it won’t feel like they did. Think of it like a dissociative state. Eventually that feeling will subside.”

“Yes, thank you for letting me know.” She replies as she brings the vial to her lips. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka finds himself lingering outside of the infinity. He had tried to go in with her but they’d told him that they didn’t want him to infringe on the treatment; their diplomatic way of telling him that they didn’t want him in the way. 

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, deciding that he’d rather not see her so vulnerable anyhow. He’d hate it twice over if she had another episode of flashbacks. Though he has yet to hear any calls or other sounds of distress. 

He paces outside the door until Zuko calls him for dinner. He supposes that there’s no sense skipping it when he can’t really do anything to comfort Azula yet anyhow. He tries to engage with the lively banter of the table but his mind constantly drifts to the room upstairs and down the hall.

Sokka finishes his meal and wanders back to that hallway. He decides that he will wait for her in her bedroom. He pulls a chair up to the bed and flicks his boomerang around, flinching when he knocks over a decorative egg that had been resting upon her dresser. He is in the middle of picking the thankfully unbroken ornament up when the door opens. 

Azula is limp in Dr. Phang’s arms and Sokka fights back a shudder. 

“Can you lift the blankets for me?” 

Sokka springs to his feet and does as requested. Dr. Phang carefully lays Azula upon the mattress and lets Sokka pull them over her. “When she wakes up she will be a little disoriented and maybe a bit confused.” 

“Okay, that makes sense.” 

“If she needs anything, I will be in the main guest bedroom.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” Sokka answers.” 

**.oOo.**

“How are you feeling?” Sokka asks. 

Truth be told, she isn’t quite sure. There is a pressure behind her forehead. It doesn’t beat or ache. It doesn’t hurt but it feels terribly congested. She massages her temples as she tries to recall where she is and how she got there. 

She half sits up, propping herself up against the pillows and headboard. She is definitely in her own bed. Slowly it comes back to her that she had gone through an operation...no a treatment. She is exhausted and her mind is tingling.

“Do you want something to eat.” 

She shakes her head. Her stomach is too queasy for food. Visions come and pass in her mind’s eye and she has trouble putting them in chronological order. She closes her eyes and lays back down feeling dizzy and hazy. 

“Are you alright?” Sokka inquires. 

She isn’t sure. 

She also isn’t sure why he cares. 

No. No, she  _ does  _ know why he cares…

She knows why he cares and she is unfathomably terrified. 


	37. Whole

Azula is silent for a very long time before replying, “I think so.” She lays back down upon the mattress. Dr. Phang had been right, there is a disconnect. Her memories, though all accounted for, are unorganized and foreign. They haven’t been thought of in so long, it is like stretching a muscle after neglecting it entirely for months. That pressure behind her forehead only seems to intensify, growing into something a little more than a vague discomfort. 

“You look pale.” Sokka notes. She is well aware of his close proximity. She gives a small jerk when his hand touches her bicep. She feels rather unwell as her mind works right the turmoil within. 

“I can get you something to drink.” He offers. 

Azula nods. Her newly awakened memories still feel somehow distant, she supposes that this is why she isn’t yet feeling amiss about Sokka’s presence and kindness. Yet, it tingles in the back of her mind that something is wrong. 

**.oOo.**

When he gets back, the princess is sleeping on her side with her right arm wedged between her cheek and the pillow. The left is draped over her middle. He isn’t sure how that position is even remotely comfortable. 

He sets the drink down next to her untouched meal. He wonders if he should begin preparing himself for the end of their newly begun relationship. At the very least he decides that he should prepare for a decent struggle.

Sokka thinks of Zuko and hopes that he has taken the chance to get close enough to Azula for her to reconsider letting past animosity take over. On a normal night, he would lay himself down next to the firebender. On this one, he keep his distance. 

She doesn’t seem to be sleeping fitfully, so he makes his way down the hall to update Zuko on her condition. 

**.oOo.**

The conflict in her mind grows as her memories solidify. In the passing days the fog of dissociation seems to dissipate, leaving her with a very clear concoction of emotions. Among them is embarrassment; a feeling that she has betrayed herself in getting so close to the Tribesman. In letting bygones be bygones. And yet she can’t quite imagine herself grow lonely again. 

But Mai and TyLee...what is to stop them from deciding that they no longer want to speak with her now that she is whole again? She’d only barely managed to get Katara to start trusting her…

She occupies her time with distractions. Mostly she resumes her firebending regimen and with a much fuller library of stances, techniques, and katas. It is more than time consuming enough to disappear for hours and without anyone asking much. As far as they are concerned, she has just regained full access to her bending abilities and is trying to make the most of it. 

Really, she is avoiding things. And she can’t say that she doesn’t feel at least a little ashamed of it. She has never been one to dodge things that required confrontation. But most of those things have dealt with the physical. 

It is another two days before Sokka sees through her antics. The man makes a point of announcing his entry. The fire dies in her palm and she snaps around to face him. “When I’m training, don’t interrupt.” 

“Funny, you’re always training lately.” He comments. “That doesn’t leave a lot of room for talking.”

“That’s correct.” She confirms as she drops back into the stance she had been. 

**.oOo.**

“If you don’t want to talk then you can at least say it.” He pushes. Her stance grows tighter and he winces, stomach constricting with fear. He hasn’t felt true fear around her in a very long while. He gets a feeling that he should be so brazen and forthcoming with her now that she has her memories back.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” Azula replies after a minute or so, she remains with her back turned to him. 

It is like a slap in the face, one that he had been ready for. One where he saw the hand lift but didn’t do anything to dodge. And it stings with an unimaginable intensity. Sokka had been more than prepared for her to reject him. His mind wanders back to the swamp, to the hateful and menacing apparition. The one that stands in front of him right now. 

He train of thought carries him to the conversation that night, where they’d both insisted that her new memories would account for so much more than the old and it hurts twice over. 

It seems as though hope hasn’t paid off this time. He bunches his fists. Yue had died, Suki had finally admitted that she had grown distant because loved women, and Azula…

Perhaps he should just accept life as a lone wolf. 

“Why are you still here?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I guess I was just hoping that…” 

“That you’d change your mind and talk to me.” 

“Then you’re wasting your time.”

This tinges his vision red so suddenly that he is almost dizzy. He had crossed a tundra in a raging blizzard, trekked through it a second time, spent the night in an uncomfortable compound dealing with her moods, and paraded around a swamp with here. “I’ve already wasted time on you! What’s a few more minutes!?” He snaps. He thinks that she might have flinched, but then he could be seeing what he wants to see. His hand comes to the burn on his chest, it seems to tingle. He’d let that slide too, hadn’t he. “You used me.” He accuses. 

She rolls her eyes. “This surprises you?” 

His mouth falls agape, he closes it and opens it several times, but he doesn’t think anything he says will be able to encompass and express just how severely livid he is. How utterly flabbergasted and thrown aback. How betrayed…

He clenches his fists tighter and storms out of the room. 

**.oOo.**

The dread she feels is cold. Surely he will scamper off to his friends and she will be back to where she started. He wishes that he would have just let her come to him. She is almost certain that she would have once she had a chance to sort things out with herself. 

Instead he had done what he always has, pestered and probed until it brought razors to her tongue. Perhaps, a few days ago he could have talked her down or guilted her into admitting that she was just...confused. 

But her newly reawakened pride wouldn’t accept even the smallest slight and prioritized having the last word over any real discussion.

Azula supposes that she could hustle after him and tell him that she simply hadn’t been ready for a discussion yet, that was all. But she refuses to demean herself in that way so she runs through a few more katas and heads back to her room. 

She sees him in the hall, he is just out of earshot but his posture and gestures as he speaks with Katara suggest anger and outrage. She slips into her room opting out of dinner that night. Nevermind defending herself, he’d already begun speaking ill of her. 

Once again she is alone and without allies. 

This time she has Long Feng, and whatever team he may or may not still have, to face. Her head pounds furiously and she rubs her temples. She has managed alone before...and yet he had managed to take her before…

She lays in bed staring at the ceiling. Decidedly she should have gone with her first instinct, to not retrieve her lost memories. And yet, not having them was driving her mad. At least then she had support, that is more than she can say now. 

Azula thinks back to the fight she’d had with Sokka on their way from the tundra to the Fire Nation. It had gone very much the same. She’d simply assumed that things were unsalvageable only to find them resolved, even if the progress was slow. 

But that was different. That was when she wasn’t her. That was when he had faith that she would turn around. 

She bunches herself up.

At least these thoughts keep her mind out of that facility for the time. 


	38. It Counts

_ Her world is tainted in purple, she can only see purple. When she closes her eyes it is still there and, though it is a muted version of the color. Purple drips in her eyes, and she sees the world as though she is peering through a window freshly spotted with rain.  _

_ And she is cold.  _

_ So horribly cold.  _

_ She can’t feel her fire.  _

_ They are all around her and this time they have faces. One is Ting-Lao’s ugly bearded mug. The man’s face is narrow and shrew-like. The one next to him is a woman, fairly young and with short hair. And the man next to her is bearded and somehow both burly and scrawny at once. She realizes that it is his chest that is burly but his arms are significantly less so.  _

_ Those arms reach out to place a gag in her mouth, they have tired over her shouting and infuriated cursing.  _

_ She realizes with horror that they aren’t gagging her for the sake of doing so. But rather they are stuffing the veins into her mouth faster than she can safely swallow them. She can’t breath, she can barely even manage faint choking sounds.  _

_ Her mouth is filled with the taste of rancid water and fish and a tinge of something more earthy. The texture is slimy and slippery and all around unpleasant. She grasps at the air, reaching for some involuntary snatch for air. They show no mercy and less regard for her humanity as they pile more vines into her mouth. They catch in her throat and tighten her chest. She kicks her feet as far as the restraints will allow.  _

_ The purple in her vision fades as tears slip from her eyes, twin trails of agony that closely resemble the trails of saliva and swamp water that leak from the corners of her mouth. She isn’t sure how long this has been going on for but she is well aware that she should be dead having been deprived of oxygen for this long. Yet she continues to suffer and they continue to pile vines down her throat.  _

_ They begin to slide unpleasantly down the entire length of her throat, which is swollen and bulging with them. Her mouth is overflowing with them, spilling vine juices and Agni knows what else. She finds that she wants to just suffocate already, if only to be done with this. But slowly, the vines work their way into her stomach and some relief comes to her throat.  _

_ It is short lived, they are heaping more vines into her mouth to replace the ones that have just left.  _

_ She almost wishes that they would begin slicing and cutting as usual. At least she is familiar with that brand of torture. This...this is new. This is terrifying. Like drowning but without the comforts of liquid.  _

_ She feels bloated and fatigued and utterly hopeless. She knows that no one is coming to help her. She knows that she can’t help herself. She can now feel them coiling about in her belly. She worries that they may erupt from within her.  _

_ At some point she becomes desensitized to the vines being forced into her mouth. That sensation is all but gone when she begins to feel wriggling under the flesh of her arms and legs.  _

_ The unstrap, hoist her to her feet, and tell her to bend. She eyes them desperately, almost pleadingly but they insist, “waterbend.”  _

_ But she can’t.  _

_ She can’t even firebend. _

_ She can barely even hold herself upright, she feels so tired and heavy and nauseous.  _

_ She falls to her hands and knees and hurls. She doesn’t try to stop herself, she needs to purge at least some of the vines before they kill her. But they fight back, they latch themselves to her innards and cling until she is only dry choking.  _

_ She flops onto her side too weak to muster even a tormented moan. Azula lies in a heap, simply breathing. Breathing until a clump of vines sloughs out of her mouth. They are glowing purple. She notices now that her arms are as well and her tummy, and likely her neck as well.  _

_ She feels the vines pushing against her as though she is with child. She know what is about to happen. She knows it and she is horrified. She can only manage a small whimper before it does.  _

_ She is reduced to a ribboned version of herself, with vines wiggling from the bloody mass. _

_ They peer over her as if their experiment has been a success.  _

**.oOo.**

For the fifth night that week, Azula wakes in a state of potent dread, her face slick with nervous sweat. She is grasping reflexivly at her throat, a phantom burning lingers within it. The nightmares are back and they are twice as vivid and with real images to play upon. These are more paralyzing than the one she had just awakened from. At least this one she can say is out of the realm of possibility. Not like the ones where she watches them dissect her; a sleeptime replay of the truth. 

On most nights she wakes with her heart racing and her eyes watery and this time she has no one to reach out to. 

Between the nightmares, the re-acquired loneliness, and the real fear that she is being persecuted, Azula’s head pounds constantly. The last time she had slept good was a week or so ago. 

This time no one has come to check on her, setting in stone that she has burned a very delicate bridge. 

She thinks that she may lose her mind at any moment. Perhaps she is already in the process, she certainly doesn’t feel right. A disconnect, similar to what she felt with her memories, is beginning to settle in. She wanders the palace in something of a haze. 

She is getting jumpy again, the thought that Long Feng might be sneaking people into the palace is becoming pressing. She can’t imagine that Zuzu will put much thought into thoroughly checking who he newly hires, especially not for her. 

Azula notices that she is pacing and brings herself to a halt. The scars on her arms and belly seem to flare up and inch more intolerably than ever. She feels faint and leans herself heavily against the wall, slumping to the floor with her hands gripping her head. 

She thinks of Sokka. Of how he had held her so close, of how he could usually talk her out of the chaos in her mind. She decides once and for all that she has made a mistake. Despite it all, despite any history, she is sure that it no longer matters. Not when he had been so good to her in a moment of weakness when he very well could have taken her down permanently. He had been so caring and she had pushed him away over what? Things that happened years ago, a silly feeling that she was supposed to hate him. 

Azula isn’t sure how long she’d sat there, mind racing uncontrollably, but there is a sensation of pins and needles in her arms and legs. She is both thankful and distraught that no one has taken notice of her. 

She forces herself to her feet, her legs are wobbly as she makes her way down the hall. With a deep sigh she resigns herself to what needs to be done. It will be a whole lot easier to take herself to Dr. Yu-Kang than it would be, to be forcibly escorted. 

Anyways, she needs  _ someone  _ to talk to.

A tap on her shoulder barely registers. 

“You don’t look so good. I can tell, and I’m blind!”

“Why are you talking to me?” 

Toph shrugs. “Just because Sokka and Katara are mad, doesn’t mean I have to be.” 

The relief she feels is almost palpable, but she refrains from completely unloading on Toph. That’s what Dr. Yu-Kang is for. Instead she replies, “I’m fine.” 

“Okay, you’re not even putting effort into that lie.” 

“I’ll be fine.” Azula insists. “I just need to...I need to speak with Dr. Yu-Kang.”

“Your therapist?” Toph asks. 

Azula nods. 

“What for?” 

“A lot of things.” She mutters. 

“Like how Sokka’s mad?”

“Among other things, I suppose.” She replies matter of factly. The urge to unload everything onto the earthbender persists. But she can’t afford such a display of weakness at the moment. Not when so many people are furious with her. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Toph asks. “I’m not a comforting person but I can tell you to man up.” 

“I’m not a comforting person either.” Azula shrugs. Evidently she has been trying to tell herself to acquire herself some thicker skin. “I can take care of myself.”

“If you say so.” Toph shrugs. She begins to walk away and Azula wishes she had said more. Though she isn’t sure what to say. Regardless, Toph turns back around. “Hey, if you wanna, I don’t know, light stuff on fire and throw rocks at stuff with me, just ask.”

“I’ll...consider.” Azula says. Though random acts of destruction isn’t what she constitutes as a good time, she is willing to part take if it means having at least one person who doesn’t resent her. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka has long since learned to sense anxiety on the fire princess and she is exuding it very strongly. He has a nagging and impulsive itch to go and comfort her as he normally would but he is done playing games. He is certainly done wasting his time on someone who would throw him aside over things that happened so far in the past.

From the room over, he observes her slip into a chair and wait for her lunch. When it is set before her, she stares at it for a good while before actually eating it. After she finishes it, she pushes the bowl aside, rests her arms on the table, and buries her face in them. 

He doesn’t think that she is crying. 

If she is, she is doing so very silently and unnoticeably. 

He thinks that she might have fallen asleep.

“You doing okay, Sokka?” Katara asks. 

He shrugs, “still pissed.” He folds his arms over his chest and fights to keep his voice low, Raava forbid he wakes that dragon. “I just wasted so much time. You told me so. You all warned me but I thought that maybe helping her out would make a difference…” 

“To be fair, it did with Zuko. No one blames you for having hope.” Katara smiles. “And no one is mad at you for being a good person.”

“I am!” He shouts. He flinches and looks in Azula’s direction. She must be out cold. 

“I know that Aang was happy to see you so optimistic.” 

“And he wonders why I’m a pessimist.” Sokka grumbles. 

Katara rolls her eyes. “If you keep crossing your arms like that they’re going to get locked in that position!” Katara declares. She nudges him lightly, “come on, let’s go walk by the turtle-duck pond.”

**.oOo.**

Azula takes a deep breath as she approaches the guest bedroom. This idea, this new idea is probably a much better one. Yet she dreads it all the same. She gives the door a knock before she can second guess herself. 

She hears footsteps approaching and very briefly locks eyes with Sokka before the door falls open and she is beckoned inside. She catches the briefest flicker of something in Sokka’s eyes, it is probably hatred. 

She slinks inside and slumps down on the sofa. 

“Is everything alright?” Dr. Phang asks. “Have the side effects not cleared?”

“The treatment went fine. Perfect in fact.” Azula responds. 

He tilts his head in confusion. “Then what are you doing here?” He clares his throat. “I inquire with all do respect, princess.” 

She waves the apology off. “I’m here because it went  _ perfectly _ .”

Again, Dr. Phang looks almost comically perplexed. 

“I…” She trails off. “I want you to erase my memories again. All of them if need be.” She never takes her eyes from him.

The man parts his lips but remains silent for a time. “Would you like to speak with Dr. Yu-Kang, princess?”

She swallows, “that is my backup plan.”

“Then it is a good thing that you had a backup plan.”

“I am your princess and I am telling you…”

“Having your mind and spirit energy tampered with just once is extremely dangerous. Twice, is treading very dangerous waters. Thrice…” He pauses. “What you’re asking me to do is to ravage your mind. Forgive me, princess, but I study chi and spirit energy to aid people, not destroy them.” 

Azula finds herself massaging small circles on her temple. 

“I can contact Dr. Yu-Kang, if you would like.” 

“Yes, please.” She says very softly. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka steps back from the door, his stomach fluttering with secondhand sadness. He knows that this is a conversation that he wasn’t supposed to have heard and he doesn’t think that he should stick around and let it be known that he had. 

He should just make his way back to his room and forget about it. She made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with him. He lightly raps on his forehead with the heel of his hand. But why would she ask him to wipe her memories again if she didn’t feel some sort of regret?

He answers himself with a forward,  _ she doesn’t want to remember what happened in the compound _ . Still, something keeps him rooted in the hallway.

Just as he makes up his mind that he is going to mind his own business, the door opens and he finds himself looking her directly in the eyes. 

Exhausted, weary eyes. 

He opens his mouth to speak but she shoves past him, Dr. Phang in tow. He has an impulse to catch her wrist but he knows that taking her by surprise is never a good idea. At best she’d jerk away, at worst he’d be met with a faceful of fire. 

Anyhow, he doesn’t think that he should care.

But he doesn’t like her posture. The way she is almost slouched as though her head is too heavy for her neck. 

He supposes that he has invested too much time into this, whatever it is, to just let it fail. With a long sigh he catches up to Azula. “Why can’t you just apologize like everyone else does?”

Azula’s frown only deepens and her eyes grow dimmer. 

“I’ll stop being mad if you just apologize.”

She presses her lips firmly and stubbornly together. 

“I’m serious, I won’t forgive you if you don’t say it.”

He didn’t realize that an expression could get  _ that  _ dark and forlorn.

He tries a lighter tone, “You did it the last few times.”

She holds her silence. 

With the old Azula reawakened and in the way, he is almost sure that he isn’t going to coax an apology from her, not now that her mind is rooted back in old habits. 

She turns back to Dr. Phang and quietly requests, “perhaps I should go to Dr. Yu-Kang.” 

“Okay fine, you win!” Sokka bursts out, his hopes plummeting rapidly. “We can talk about things.” He doesn’t think that she will take him up on his offer. 

He watches her take a place propped up against the wall. “You’re dismissed for the moment, Dr. Phang.” He isn’t sure how she can still sound so authoritative. 

The man offers a slight bow. “I will be in the guest room, you know where to find me.”

He takes his leave and Azula lets herself slide down the wall. For a while she only stares blankly at the opposite wall. He can tell that she wants to cry but she doesn’t

He wishes that she just would. She is always calmer when she just lets it out. “Talk.”

Sokka finds that he has no dialogue to offer, he didn’t think he’d get this far. He didn’t think that he was going to even try. “You said that you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I didn’t.” She sticks to her word. “Not at that moment.”

“Then why did you tell me that I was wasting my time?”

She is quiet for another very long stretch of time and he thinks that it is his cue to leave. He shifts his weight and she speaks up again. “You made me angry. I wanted to be left alone.” 

“And I left you alone.” He points out.

“Not that alone.” She mutters.

“Well then when would you have wanted to talk to me?” He asks. “I wasn’t going to wait forever.”

“I can force Dr. Phang to get rid of my memories again, it will be easier…”

“Since when have you ever taken the easy way out of things?”

“Since the hard way became unmanageable.” Azula replies. “I know when to back out of a fight that I can’t win.” Somehow she looks tireder still. 

“You can win this one though.” 

**.oOo.**

Azula swallows. She should have kept walking. She should have just hustled onto that boat and back to Fire Lake. “Can I?” She asks. “It’s been over three years since I started it…” She feels so drained. So spent. “I’m tired of fighting.” 

Sokka’s fingers seem to twitch. She speculates that he has just thought better of placing his hand atop hers. 

“I think that I lost my memories because the universe knew that I couldn’t deal with them anymore.” Her soul feels as heavy as she had in her dream. She feels just as suffocated too. Each and every instinct she has screams for her to shut the hell up. To stop admitting weakness. But one single, particularly loud instinct pushes her to continue. “I don’t want to be alone again...it only took me a few days with my memories and one conversation to push everyone away.” 

Sokka blinks.

“I can keep doing this or I can erase everything again with a note to myself that I don’t want my memories back and then I can move on.”

Sokka rubs his hands over his face. “I can be patient.” He says. “I should have been patient. It takes time to get used to...everything.”

Azula shrugs, “patience wears thin eventually no matter how long the supply is.” 

“Do you really think that it will take you that long to get it together?”

He truly does have such a way with words. She rolls her eyes, “yes, I do.” 

“I don’t think so.”

“You need to back your claims with proof.” 

“You wouldn’t have sat down and talked to me like this before, would you have?”

She considers. “No.”

“Well then…” He nudges her. 

“Don’t do that.” She scowls. 

“Sorry.” He mumbles. 

A part of her almost feels bad, he is trying which is more than she can say. She wants to joke and jest but she can’t. She isn’t comfortable with it anymore. She doesn’t know why she can’t just be comfortable with it. It used to be so easy. She rests her face against her knees. For a moment she clutches her head but then she releases her hold and simply hovers her open hand slightly above her head. 

“It would be better if I just…” She trails off. “I was easier to be around. People liked me more when…”

She doesn’t need to look up to know that grim, tightlipped expression is on his face. “If I can’t love the real you, is it love at all? I want to love  _ you _ , not a half version of you.”

**.oOo.**

She looks up.

Her lower lips seems to tremble. Still she doesn’t cry. He really, truly wishes that she would. He finds himself saying, “just let it out.”

“What?” She utters.

“Just cry already.” He laughs. 

She shakes her head, “not a chance.” 

“I’ve already seen you cry several times, I can list them off if you’d like.”

At this she cringes and her nose scrunches. “Don’t.” For a moment she looks faintly humored, but this fades quickly. 

“I won’t.” He replies lamely. “But I don’t think any differently about you for crying. You’re still the most terrifying person I’ve ever talked to.” She misses the affection in the comment completely and seems to grow dim again. “I mean that in a good way. You’re fierce! You know, like dragons!”

“You’re horrible at this.” She mumbles. 

“I’m trying, doesn’t that count for anything?”

She catches him off guard with an affirmative nod. “Yes.” 


	39. Just Like Before

The longer he stares at her the more he finds himself regretting having approached her at all. She is no longer the only one with a sense of conflict. For as much as he doesn’t want to burn such a beautiful and gilded bridge, he finds that he is still unfathomably angry. Perhaps too much to provide any real comfort. Perhaps he is the one who wants comfort this time. 

She is the one who pushed him out. She is the one who had said cold things. Why is he once again the one reaching out and apologizing as though he’d done her wrong? The sting of betrayal is still heavy in his mind, reminding him of the moment when Suki had finally made her confession. 

At least Suki hadn’t meant to hurt him. At least in making a clean and clear break, she’d been trying to make things a little easier on him. She’d been trying to avoid using him or lying to him. That is more than he can say about the woman sitting with her head against the wall, staring silently at the ceiling with one leg outstretched and the other drawn up to her chest. She drapes her arm over the indrawn leg. 

Their conversation had died off several minutes ago and in the silence reality hits in full. He shouldn’t be comforting her, he thinks that he is doing so on an impulse. He knows how this will turn out. He’d told her that she’d been using him and she practically agreed. She’s using him again. 

But then he doesn’t know why she’d be so distraught if she doesn’t regret having said so. And he’d already promised her patience. But did he really owe her anything at all? And thus his conflict. 

Sokka wonders how she would react now if he were to bring up his own problems. He waits too long and his opportunity passes. She begins a new conversation. 

**.oOo.**

It feels horrible amiss to express any sort of vulnerability. He is still angry with her, very much so, she can sense it on him. It rattles her to the core to know that she has let him get close enough to her for her to be able to tell that he’d like little to do with her. It makes her head spin, she doesn’t know why he has told her he’d be patient with her when he’d rather not speak with her at all.

She thinks of telling him to leave again, to make it easier on the both of them. Instead she chooses a new topic. And she is weary; he can so easily take anything she says and weaponize it. Yet it is too hard to keep it in. She rubs her face, wonder why and when it had become so hard for her to just cope on her own. 

Still, it stands that she can’t keep in inside anymore, it is driving her mad. “I still can’t sleep?”

“I can tell.” His tone is colder, he sounds much more like her than himself.

As far as she is concerned, the conversation is over and it has done little to help her mood. Frankly she thinks that she feels worse for it. Azula gets to her feet regardless of what she feels for Sokka, she knows that he can’t help her. 

He can tell her that he’d be patient with her all he wants but at the end of the day it is just empty words. She doesn’t look back as she wanders back to Dr. Phang’s office. She will make her departure silent and have Dr. Phang send word to Zuko. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka’s stomach sinks as Azula walks away but he lets her go. He thinks that it might be better for him in the long run. Yet his mind nags him to not let go. Not just yet. He retreats back to his room and occupies himself by slashing his sword at the air. He only stops when the blade comes much too close to a particularly pricey looking sofa. He moves his training to the designated room. 

He has a sturdy flow going, graceful and elegant. Her runs through arcing sweeps and quick uppercuts. Every now and again he gives his boomerang a toss, it finds its mark across the room and comes back. 

He wishes that people were more like his boomerang. 

“Are you doing alright buddy?” Zuko asks. 

Sokka has to snicker at the inside joke. “I talked to your sister.” 

Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose. “After swearing up and down that you wouldn’t?”

“Don’t worry, I decided that I wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily this time. I think that she got the hint.” His own words put a flutter in his belly. Why had he told her that he’d be patient and loving if he wasn’t ready to be that? He curses the heat of the moment. He curses himself for getting attached to someone who never truly existed. Someone who he’d known from the start would hurt him terribly. “It’s not my job to fix her.” He pauses. “I loved her for something she wasn’t and I’m not going to pretend to love who she used to be. I’m not going to pretend like I’m okay with that person coming back.”

Zuko finds himself a spot on the wall. “I don’t think that, that person is entirely back.” He pauses. “She’s a lot better than I expected.”

“How so?”

“She isn’t trying to hurt anyone.” He shrugs. 

“So what?” Sokka asks.”Are we supposed to pat her on the back for finally acting like she should have from the start!? And she did hurt someone. She did it in the exact same why that she always has. With words and lies.”

**.oOo.**

Azula wishes that it didn’t take losing him for her to ultimately decide that she didn’t want to. Maybe it would have felt foreign and strange, perhaps downright wrong at first as one half of her worked to catch up with the other. But it would have been fine. 

It could have been fine. 

It  _ should  _ have been fine.

But it isn’t fine. She knows when she is being cut off and it is entirely her fault for allowing herself to let someone in. She finds herself furious at him for taking advantage of her during a moment of weakness. For helping her at just the right time to make it seem like he was the right person. 

She thinks that there is no right person for her. She is meant to be alone.

It is entirely her fault for not being able to treat a person right.

She is definitely meant to be alone. 

She sits down on her bed and stares at her palms. She supposes that anything she’d had with Sokka hadn’t been genuine anyways. It was simply the product of latching onto the first person who would spare her any kindness.

She wants to believe as much anyways, it would make things easier to cope with. But if it hadn’t been genuine then she doesn’t think that it would hurt so much to lose it. She rubs her hands over her face.

**.oOo.**

This time he takes Zuko with him when he heads for Azula’s room. They need to talk and this time they are going to talk about him, about his feelings, about why he is hurt and not about her. It will be something of a test, if she can listen to him and try to see his side...if she can understand why he was so hurt then they might be able to work things out. 

If he can just see a spark of compassion from her it could reassure him that the part of her that he loved is still there. Truly there. 

That she isn’t just using him as a more intimate therapist. 

“She’s been surprisingly cordial with me.” Zuko says. “She’s been giving Mai and TyLee space though. I think that she knows that we aren’t happy with how she treated you…”

“And…?”

“And. I guess that I’m trying to say that I think that she wants things to be how they were before she got her memories back. She just isn’t sure how to get them there.” He smiles reassuringly. 

Sokka swallows and forces one last bout of optimism, a small but shimmering ray of hope that she might be willing to listen to his problems for once. It wanes as quickly as he had coaxed it forward when he knocks on her door and it falls ajar, revealing a lack of the princess and a room devoid of her most prized belongings. 


	40. Facets

Sokka had expected to take it much harder, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he might just be happier without her. She is no longer there to argue with him over ridiculous things. And he no longer has to face her problems for her. Perhaps with her is a more truthful statement, but he isn’t ready to embrace the whole truth yet. He isn’t ready to look at things without a degree of resentment.

Indeed he thinks that he is better off. 

Yet, in the back of his mind he goes back to that night under the auroras. That night where she’d come to him and offered to do something he enjoyed. To the day in the swamp where she’d sat with him and comforted him. 

It has been several days since she had fled. The first had been the worst, the most hectic. In a moment of panic Zuko had assumed that she’d simply taken flight again; ran off into the streets. In telling him that she’d mentioned going back to Fire Lake he’d replied with a swift, “what if she decided not to wait for the ship?” 

He’d only be settled when Dr. Phang confirmed that she’d left on the ship. Even then he’d found a new thing to fret over, “what if that was a trap? What if she’s on her way back to another Vine Research Facility compound?” 

He relaxed completely the following day when he’d received a messenger hawk from her. 

For Sokka the first day had been nothing but regret. Regret that he’d written her off so quickly. Regret that he’d let anger and hurt and feelings of betrayal overpower love. Regret that he hadn’t come to check on her sooner, before she’d left. 

That first day he’d paced about and vented to Katara, to Aang, to Toph, to Zuko, to Appa and Momo, to anyone who would listen really. And soon that regret and hurt turned back into anger and venting became ranting. Rambling about how she is selfish and how she’d stabbed him in the back. How she is a hypocrite for stabbing him in the back when she knows too well how terrible the feeling is. 

Now he reclines on a chair in the palace gardens awaiting further news about Long Feng’s whereabouts. So far the man has been keeping his head down, but he doesn’t doubt that once he gets word of Azula’s vulnerability, he will make his move. Whether she knows it or not, she is bait. 

That hadn’t been his intention. It certainly wasn’t Zuko’s. But she’d probably admire how cunningly and swiftly he was planning on taking advantage of the situation. 

Despite it all he still has a touch of worry for the princess. Raava forbid that they actually capture her again. For as much teeth as she is showing, for as much of the old her is back, he can’t imagine her faring well against rekindled traumas. 

Sokka’s mind wanders to the night at the compound. 

The small on his chest.

Holding her has she cried softly.

She doesn’t cry anymore, he reminds himself. He catches himself before he accuses her of being unfeeling. Unexpressive is more befitting. He pushes the thoughts out of his head. He doesn’t know why he is having them now after several days of either celebrating Azula’s absence or not thinking of her at all. 

He misses her and he is angry that he does. 

He tells himself that it is for the best. That she isn’t right for him and that she isn’t healthy for him. That she has just been difficult and a pain in the ass from the start; he thinks of her bundled up and shivering, finger freshly claimed by the cold. Alright, maybe not from the start…

**.oOo.**

It feels terribly odd to be sitting in Dr. Yu-Kang’s office on her own accord. She feels rather awkward. Awkward and almost ashamed to admit that she can’t handle things on her own. That she can’t get a grip on her own thoughts. 

“Dr. Phang told me that you asked him to erase your memories again?”

Azula nods. Dr. Yu-Kang waits for her to elaborate. She doesn’t

“Why is that?”

Azula inhales sharply. She has come here to talk so she better talk. 

“Do you want to address something different to begin with?” 

Azula shakes her head. “I want to talk about this.”

“Whenever you’re ready.” Dr. Yu-Kang offers. “Would you like something to drink.” 

She shakes her head again. “I asked him to take my memories again because it’s...they make things feel wrong.” 

“Wrong?” 

“Like I shouldn’t be talking to Zu-Zu or Mai and Tylee. Like I shouldn’t...love Sokka.” 

Dr. Yu-Kang nods. “Well why does this feel wrong to you?”

She shrugs. “Because, before I left they’d have nothing to do with me. If I didn’t lose my memories they wouldn’t have let me in. I don’t think I would have wanted to be let in.”

“But you did lose them.” Dr. Yu-Kang replies. “The universe has a balance. If you weren’t meant to have lost your memories, you wouldn’t have. And if you weren’t meant to be found by Sokka then it wouldn’t have happened.” 

“A coincidence, I assure you.” Azula replies. 

“You don’t believe in fate?”

“Do I come off to you as the type who would?” She links her hands and rests them atop her knee. 

Dr Yu-Kang chuckles. “I suppose that you don’t. You are in charge of your own fate. You like to be in charge of your own fate.”

“Yes, that’s correct.” Azula agrees. 

“Then choose it. You can cling to your past and your old memories or you can acknowledge them, leave them in the past, and continue with the life your new memories have begun.” She takes a drink. “That is your choice. That is what you control.”

Azula swallows. “Yes well, that still doesn’t change that that person wasn't even me. They, Sokka, Zuko, all of them...they like a false version of me.”

Dr. Yu-Kang looks into her teacup for the longest time. Azula is certain that she has outwitted the woman, even if that wasn’t the goal. In fact it is exactly what she had dreaded, that her therapist wouldn’t even have any advice to offer. At last she looks up. “Have you considered that, that simply isn’t true?” 

Azula tilts her head. 

“I know that you don’t like to be. But you are wrong, princess.” 

“Excuse me?” She half sputters, half grumbles. 

Again Dr. Yu-Kang gives a slight chuckle. “I know that you have had this discussion before, princess; you lost your memories, you didn’t lose you. Whatever you said and did without your memories, is something within the realm of possibility for you to have done with them. It is nearly impossible to erase a person’s nature entirely. One would have to do a lot of damage to achieve that.” She lets that settle in. “I have spoken with you enough to know that you require proof so I will offer it.”

Azula shifts, switching which leg overlaps the other. 

“When we were discussing Yion’s crimes and my…” she coughs “negligence and incompetence, it felt as though you had never lost your memories at all. Your ability to resume firebending with such expertise, your authoritative and intimidating presence, your inclinations to have control, and your intelligence. The things that defined the old you were still there. You had simply acquired new perspectives and sides of yourself.” She pauses again. “That is what this is; there is no new and old you. There is the old you with new goals, desires, and personality facets.”

“New facets…” Azula repeats more to herself. 

“Your older personality traits and your new ones aren’t incompatible. And these new feelings and relationships have just as much value as your old ones. I would say that they have more value.”

Her face falls, “I’ve already made a mess of those.”

Dr. Yu-Kang quirks a brow. “This is the first time you’ve been in a relationship, isn’t it?”

Azula’s face colors. Enough so that Dr. Yu-Kang is confident in continuing her line of thought. “Romantic partnership is like any other kind of partnership. There will be fights, I think that you know this. There will be  _ bad  _ fights. But that doesn’t mean that the relationship is over, even if it seems like it is.” 

She feels like a fool for not being able to grasp something so simple. She quietly vocalizes as much before she can stop herself. 

“Inexperience is different from incompetence. I know enough of your history to know that you haven’t been particularly exposed to love nor a healthy relationship. I don’t think that this will be a problem for you, you are a fast learner.” 

Azula swallows. “Yes, I suppose, but I still don’t know how to fix things.”

“I think that you do, you just don’t want to.”

“I do…”

“Then you are going to have to put your pride aside for the moment. And you’re going to have to deal with some discomfort.” 

She shifts again, she supposes she already feels plenty uncomfortable, she is almost dizzy with it. “What if Sokka doesn’t want to talk.”

“We can talk about that if it happens. I am not his therapist, but he is around you enough for me to get a little sense of him. He doesn’t strike me as the type to give up on someone.”

Azula flexes her fingers. “Alright.” 

“Though I suggest that you ask him why he is upset with you.” She pauses. “It is easy to only think of oneself in an argument. Don’t you think that you might have hurt him too? Usually people don’t lash out if they aren’t hurt in some way.” 

“I’ll…” she hesitates. “Keep that in mind.” Empathy, sympathy, compassion...they had never come easily to her. To the old her…

To the person who hadn’t acquired new viewpoints. 

She thinks, she hopes, that she is able to feel them now. She supposes that she must, if she is even considering apologizing. She practically cringes at the thought of an apology. There is almost nothing she likes less than being wrong.

“Is there anything else you’d like to speak with me about?”

She gathers that she probably shouldn’t resume speaking with Sokka by unloading her anxieties onto him. “I am concerned about Long Feng. I feel like he is going to come for me at any moment and I’m just as alone now as…”

“I don’t mean to cut you off, but you are not alone anymore. And I think that you are perfectly capable of handling him, especially now that you know more or less, what you are facing.” 

“Yes, right.” She agrees. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka finds himself looking at the ocean. His feet have carried him to the docks and he can’t say why. The wind tosses his hair as he looks in the general direction of Lake Fire institute. 

“You’re thinking about my sister again, aren’t you?” Zuko laughs.

He jumps. “No!” He says too quickly. 

He laughs again, “she has this way of just making you dwell upon her even if you don’t want to.” 

“Yeah, well I don’t know what to do about her. I just know that she makes me so angry and I don’t even know if she feels bad about it.” He backtracks. “Bad enough to put herself aside, anyways.” 

“Yeah, that’s Azula. She is tricky. But at least now she’s trying.” 

Sokka rubs the back of his head. He supposes that she wouldn’t have taken herself to Lake Fire if she wasn't trying. At least now she has the sense to admit that she needs help. He runs his fingers through his hairline, feeling as though he should be helping. But it isn’t his job to fix her, he reminds himself. 

“How about this?” Zuko offers. “See what she says to you when she comes home and go from there.” 

“Do you have my back?” 

Zuko hesitates. “I’ll have your back, but I don’t want to give up on her myself.”

He doesn’t want to give up on her either. 


	41. Version Three

She had been on a boat and now she is alone in a room. No, not alone. Dr. Yu-Kang is there but she is out cold and a thin trail of blood trickles down from her forehead. The moles had been a small team of imperial firebenders. She recognizes several from the trip across the tundra. Others she hadn’t be closely associated with at all. 

And she has no one to blame but her own foolishness. She should have known and she shouldn’t have let her guard down. Shouldn’t have left such a large and enticing opening. She should have had Yu-Kang come to the palace instead of going to her. But her mind had been in such a state of disarray, already bogged down by several too many topics. So she is here in this chamber. It is different from her old prison, it has walls of black stone, natural as opposed to man made. Fixed to the cavern wall is a single torch with dusted with powder that tints the flame it holds green. It throws a light that glints and gleams off of clusters of soft green crystal. 

She knows where she is, she can only be in one place.

She knows what is going to happen to her. 

The only thing that takes her by surprise is that her memories are still in place. Perhaps the facility they had seized is the only one with the vines. She shakes her head, remember that they hadn’t needed to use vines for brainwashing during the hundred year war. 

Azula heaves herself up, her head feels as though it is stuffed with cotton, perhaps from when they’d bashed her head against the hardwood floor of the boat several times. Or maybe it is from when--after realizing a few strikes to the head wouldn’t keep her down--they held her head under the water until she blacked out. 

She is still enough of a threat to be in chains. In chains and with her hands stuffed into metal gloves and a metal plate fixed over her mouth cutting very painfully into the sides of her head and cheeks. It is fixed so tightly that it draws blood. And the cuffs squeeze so tightly that her hands tingle. Just enough to let her know that the tightness is the product of spite rather than paranoia or inexperience. 

They had mercy enough to let her keep her clothing. Most of it anyhow, they took special care to strip her of her armor, discarding it tauntingly on the other side of the room. The loss of that layer of clothing lets in the chill. 

That chilly draft whispers to her, informs her kindly that she has pushed her luck as far as it would go. That escaping once had been pushing it. That she is either going to die down here in the name of unethical study or that she will live on with a truly fragmented mind and waterbending in place of her fire--if they let her bend at all. 

Whatever demise she will meet down here, she will do it with unfinished business. She will do it knowing that she hasn’t anyone who particularly cares for her. She supposes that, that is how she imagined that she would die anyhow.

She wonders if Dr. Yu-Kang is still alive or if she is rooming with a fresh corpse. 

**.oOo.**

Midafternoon has turned to dusk and dusk to that deep navy just before true night. Still the ship hasn’t appeared. Several ships appeared, fishing boats, merchant ships, and tourists, but none had been the boat he was waiting on. 

Is still waiting on.

He can tell that Zuko is growing anxious next to him. The ship was supposed to have reached port hours ago. 

Sokka had expected a great variety of mishaps, but each of them involved the princess coming home and being a complete pain in the ass or a complete bitch. He had planned out what he would say for each scenario. For each insult that she was going to throw. He had dialogue and action prepared for when she came home and ignored him entirely. 

He had come up with nothing at all for the possibility that Azula wouldn’t make it home at all. 

“Zuko…” He starts, resigning to the very real possibility that something has gone wrong. 

“They have her.”

“Maybe she just...ya know…” He trails off. Zuko’s face tells him that he, in fact, does not know. “Maybe she had one of her episodes and they kept here there?” For the first time he truly wished and hoped that her mind had fled her again. 

Zuko shakes his head. “I got a messenger hawk this morning saying that they’d departed.” 

Sokka can’t help but be impressed by the speed of those birds. It distracts him from the dread building in his core. Only for a moment though before the possibilities set in. Knowing that they’d taken off but haven’t made it to the mainland suggests only two things; that something had gone wrong and the ship was either at the bottom or making its way to the bottom of the ocean or that the vessel had been claimed and was on its way to Long Feng. Perhaps he already has her. “Maybe they just left late.” He tries again.

“Her letter was clear, Sokka. They were in the middle of the ocean when it was sent. It said they’d be here soon.  _ She  _ said that she’d be home soon.” 

Sokka’s stomach flutters, something about knowing that Azula wholly expected to be back at the palace by lunchtime makes her absence twice as pronounced. “I...she thinks that I hate her.” 

“Sokka, don’t.” Zuko says through gritted teeth. “She’ll be fine. Things tend to go her way.” Except for when they didn’t. And when they didn’t, they always went devastatingly astray.

His optimism has gone through hell and taken so many beatings that he has already begun working out what to say to Zuko when she turns up either dead or with her mind scrambled and boggled beyond repair. 

He has already begun to work out how he would come to terms with that. 

**.oOo.**

Azula doesn’t know how much time has passed before Dr. Yu-Kang stirs. The only time she has ever felt this much relief was when she had burst from that Agni forsaken compound for the first time. Her eyes nearly well up; she isn’t alone this time.

“Dr. Yu-Kang.” She greets simply. 

The woman squints and winces as she sits herself up. “I suppose that I’ll know to help you better now that I’m going to have a clearer understanding of what you went through.”   
  


Azula has to snicker at her dry humor. “I did say that I wanted to lose my memories again.” She shrugs as best as she can. “I suppose that I shouldn’t complain.” Her voice is muffled by the metal plate. She finds the moving her lips is hard, almost painful as they rub against the metal. It doesn’t allow for much jaw movement either so she is ceratin that at least every other word is mispronounced. 

At this, Dr. Yu-Kang looks at her almost sadly. “Truly, I would hate for that to happen. You’ve come so far.” 

“Isn’t your job to make me feel better?”

Dr. Yu-Kang asks her to repeat herself. She has to do so twice before the woman can finally decipher the jarble. 

Dr. Yu-Kang snickers. “I only mean that you have something that you should fight for.” Though when she scans her surroundings she seems to come to the same conclusion that Azula has. There is nothing for her to work with. Here expression darkens and she falls silent. 

Really there is nothing else to say.

It is hard to speak anyhow. 

**.oOo.**

“There’s only one place that we haven’t gotten around to checking yet.” Sokka declares. “Lake Laogai.” There isn’t any protest around the table. So he continues. “So we’ll search the place. I was thinking that we can ask the Earth King to cut travel out of Ba Sing Se. No one leaves or enters. That way we can make sure that Long Feng is stuck there.” 

“I’ll send a messenger hawk.” Zuko nods. 

“I guess I don’t really have any other plans. We just have to hope that we get there on time and that the caverns aren’t empty when we do.” He pauses. “Has anyone said that they’ve seen the missing ship?”

“A cabbage merchant, sir. But he is very uncooperative.” Speaks one of the councilman. 

Sokka rubs his hands over his face. “Of course it was him.”

“You guys know a cabbage merchant?” Zuko asks. 

“Weee...uh...kind of frequently destroy his stall.” Aang rubs the back of his head. “By accident!” He adds quickly.

“Well lets speak to this merchant.”

“Let him in.” The councilman calls to the guards. They open the heavy double doors and in comes a familiar scrawny old man. Sokka has never seen someone so displeased to see him again. Like a jab to the chest, he thinks of Azula looking somehow less pleased. He thinks of bursting into Lake Laogai and into her cell only to be met with the deepest frown he’d ever seen and an unamused, “well it’s about time, nimrod.” Honestly, she may even forget her manners and call him a jackass. The notion humors him before pangs of sorrow strike. 

They’d parted on such bad terms...

“Yes, I saw a ship like that. It came to port a few days ago…” 

Sokka’s stomach sinks at the reminder of how much time they’d already wasted. For all he knows, she has already been dissected and wiped clean again. He might go to Lake Laogai and return with a third, even more unrecognizable version of Azula. 

**.oOo.**

There is nothing worse than being strapped to a metal table again. They must still have a healthy fear of her, for they had come to take her in her sleep. This time Long Feng himself looms over her. “It is a pleasure to see your face again, princess. I assure you that I will be an adequate player this time. In fact I will be the victor of this game.” 

The smug expression on his face has her scalding. 

“Go on, say something.” He challenges. “Try to sweet talk  _ my  _ men into choosing you.”

“I hadn’t the chance to speak with them before now, had I the opportunity…” 

“In other words…” his sly little grin widens, “you were never a player.”

Hearing her words spat back at her is somehow both numbing and rage inducing. “I was never a cheater either. At least I’d won the last game with dignity.” She isn’t surprised to have been struck. 

She isn’t surprised and, suddenly, isn’t angry either. He’d struck her twice over; once with his hand and once with an idea. 

Two ideas, it is a great comfort to have a back up plan.

“I can help you with your experiments.” She offers. “Father wants his bending back and I know a doctor who…”

“Do you take me for a fool!?” He snarls. She thinks that he will strike her again. Instead he grumbles, “do you really think that I would take up another partnership with you?”

She hadn’t, hence the need for a backup plan, but it was worth a try. She decides to push a different variation of her first plan. “Would you partner with…”

He cuts her off again. “I know your doctor and I know that he’s of no use. He feels too much pity and guilt.” 

She furrows her brows. “Oh, he didn’t tell you, did he?” Long Feng asks. “Perhaps you don’t recognize him, he had long hair when you first met. He had a scar too, on his cheek, before we used the vines to heal it.”

Azula fights to recall such a face and she does. It is a face that had hovered over her seemingly ages ago. 

“For a while he was my head surgeon. His research was incredible. And then he started to feel bad for you. He would take long leaves, claiming that he had to make sure Dr. Yu-Kang didn’t grow suspicious. One day he just didn’t come back.” His face contorts into an expression of anger. “Even without your sharp mind you still managed to poison my man against me with those sad tearful eyes.”

This she recalls well enough. She does remember having spoken with the long haired man as he cut her arms and belly to ribbons. Mumbling soft and confused cries until the man stopped looking at her so cold and indifferently. 

“He was very helpful in fixing what he broke…” She trails off, all the while chiding herself for not connecting the dots. For not recognizing his face. She isn’t sure if she should feel betrayed or not. 

Ultimately she decides that Phang is not worth feeling anger towards. The man, she decides, isn’t particularly evil. He is a coward. She decides that it wasn’t malice, but fear, that kept him from coming forward with the truth. Or maybe he assumed that she’d already put two and two together, which would explain why he had grown so timid around her. 

“I assure you, that he won’t be able to fix what I am about to do to you now.”

“And what are you going to do, Long Feng?” She asks in a half sigh. 

“First I am going to dig the flame right out of you. I will harvest each and every one of your chi points. And then I will pick at that brilliant mind of yours. I’ll leave you with just enough awareness to know what you’ve lost…” 

“Vindictive.” She replies plainly. He won’t be too hard. She watches him set out an array of scalpels and other blades.

“Do you know what your Dai Li agents used to say about you?”

“That I had led them well.” He mutters. 

“They thought that you were a joke. They didn’t have much love for me either, but they acknowledged that I had more honor, more intellect, more power…”

He stiffens and practically slams his carving tool down. 

“Did they say that or did you? You’re delusional, you think that you’re worth more than you are!”

Azula chuckles. “I’m a princess. I’m invaluable.”

His lip seems to twitch. “If you’re so invaluable how did you end up back here?”

“Because you don’t play fair.” She responds. “You know that if you do, the result will be remarkably similar to the first time you faced me.”

“That doesn’t change that you were unwanted enough to be shipped off to a lunatic asylum again. They left you carelessly exposed.”

“I was there on my own accord, I assure you.” She dismisses. “How can you be certain that this isn’t part of my plan? Have you considered that I  _ wanted  _ you to find me. It’s much easier than having to comb my way through the Earth Kingdom to find you.” 

Azula wasn’t aware that he could grow any tenser. 

“Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that you played directly into  _ my  _ hands.” She flashes him a smile as smug as his own had been. “I can’t imagine that it will be long now. They know that we’re under Lake Laogai. Really, where else would we be?” She continues. “What I don’t understand is why you’d be fool enough to return to your last hiding place.”

In haste he begins packing his tools away. He tries to make it look inconspicuous, but she can see his hurry. “Where do you think you can run to, Long Feng? You better think it over good and well before moving me, I don’t think that you’ll want to be caught out in the open with me.” 

He throws her haphazardly back into her cell and growls at her to stay put. It doesn’t matter, she can’t go anywhere, even without the chains he’d forgotten to bind her back up in. She hears him barking orders at her cell’s guards. Something, something about watching her as he figured out where to move her to and how to get her there. 

She waits of him to leave before laughing to herself.

Yu-Kang raises a brow.

“He is a halfwit, truly.” Azula remarks. “He loves to talk and ramble.”

Yu-Kang gives a humored sniff. “You toyed with him didn’t you?”

“He made it so easy…” She trails off. She knows very well that it had been a huge gamble. That it still is. That if she can’t find an opening during the upcoming transfer that she will have good and killed herself. 

Really the situation isn’t ideal. Once he takes her from Laogai to wherever, no one will know where to find her. Given time, they’d have found her here. But not before she’d lost portions of herself that would break and destroy her completely. 

No, her best option is to pray that she can find her opening or that Long Feng will be caught mid-transfer.

“I just worry that this won’t work out. There are too many holes…”


	42. Liberation From Above

Azula shivers to herself, she knows her time is trickling down, she can hear them talking of the transfer, but they take care not to speak of where they are going. With little else to do, Dr. Yu-Kang fixes her eyes on the door waiting for it to open. 

Azula doesn’t bother, chains or none, they have numbers on her. She can probably take several of them down but they’d keep coming until her energy has been sent. No doubt they’d take advantage of that she’s been kept unfed and only hydrated enough to remain alive and alert. Her stomach rumbles and Yu-Kang isn’t faring much better. In fact, Yu-Kang might be in worse condition being as she is an older woman nearing fifty-two years. 

The door falls open and a rock immediately collides with her head.

They aren’t taking any chances.

Before she can regain her senses, her arms and legs are encased in stone and stone presses into her mouth. 

She can feel a lump forming on her head as they drag her off to wherever. She just hopes that they will show Dr. Yu-Kang mercy, really the woman is probably only here because she had in close proximity to Azula when they’d taken her. 

Azula feels herself being lifted from the floor, partially anyhow, they are content to drag her along until it becomes inconvenient to do so. It doesn’t become inconvenient until well after her knees are scraped and dirtied. She is so frustrated that it could bring tears to her eyes, she is tired of being handled so roughly. 

Dr. Yu-Kang doesn’t receive much better treatment and Azula fears for the woman’s aging bones as they knock against the ground. 

They emerge from beneath the lake and she spies several carts and ostrich-horses at the ready. They are manned by rather unsuspecting looking individuals. They look like merchants, Azula is certain that they are. She wonders just how much Long Feng has paid them to join his schemes. She resents that he has the sense not to make an appearance himself. 

His guards toss the both of them into the back of a cart and cover it with a tarp. She can do little more than stare at Yu-Kang until it is to dark to continue doing so. Soon she can only see little pinpricks of light that manage to penetrate the burlap above her.

The cart pulls carelessly away, each time they go over a bump or a pothole her head knocks painfully against the wood. This is how she spends the majority of the trip. She begins to wonder if it would be worth it to sacrifice a hand. She could create enough fire to blast away the rocks that entrap it. From there she can rip her way through the tarp. Hell, she has heard of firebenders losing limbs in the war and using the stumps to bend. At this point it might be worth it if it will save her from losing both her mind and her bending entirely. 

Her left hand is already missing a finger…

**.oOo.**

Lake Laogai is unsurprisingly vacant when they reach it. Sokka’s heart drops, either Azula had never been there at all or they missed her. Based upon the tools set out, he wants to say that they had left in a rush. 

“The tire tracks are fresh.” He comments as he stoops down to observe the trail. Clouds of dust have only recently settled down around them. From the looks of it there are maybe only two or three carts. 

“Should we follow them?” Asks an imperial firebender. 

Zuko turns to Sokka and Sokka nods. “We’ll follow them.” Zuko confirms. 

“What if we’re too late?” Sokka asks.

“We won’t be.” Katara assures him. “Why would they be in such a hurry if they were finished with what they started?”

“To flee the scene of the crime?” Toph shrugs unhelpfully. 

“Toph!”

“What!? I’m just being realistic.” 

“We’ll catch up to them, they only have carts, we have small tanks.” Aang points out. 

But if they are too late, speed doesn’t particularly have any value. Sokka leans into his seat, feeling decently responsible for the situation. If he had just been more patient with her…

He rubs his hands over his face. No, this isn’t his fault. She didn’t have to snub him and she didn’t have to leave so hastily. Even still, angry as he is, he doesn’t think that she deserves whatever she is getting now.

**.oOo.**

The cart comes to an abrupt halt as she begins heating her left palm. She doesn’t hesitate, this may be the opening she has been looking for and she needs to be unbound to take it. She shudders to herself as the pressure builds. Before she can unleash it and take her own hand, the cart tips and overturns. She winces as the ground racks her shoulder. She thinks that it has been popped out of place. The fall had been hard enough to smash the rocks around her hands and mouth, surely it could shatter bone as well. And it must have for after the harsh pop comes an awful burst of pain. Her soft whimper becomes a sharp cry as the pain intensifies. 

She doesn’t fret over Dr. Yu-Kang because the woman has landed atop her, softening the blow for her but amplifying the struggle for Azula. The woman mumbles something through her own gag, that is probably an apology before she carefully rolls herself off of the princess. 

Ignoring the pain and the involuntary tears that have sprung to her eyes, she blasts away the rocks that bind her feet and pushes the burlap tarp aside. Apples and other fruits roll away and grains spill out, the innards of a merchant cart wreck. She scrambles to her feet and tries to get a sense of her surroundings. 

She is plenty relieved to see Fire Nation tanks amid the carts. The merchants go with their hands up but The Vine Research Facility personal put up more of a fight. She has just emerged to chucking rocks and whips of water. Between those are bursts of fire. It unsettles her to see people, clearly Earth Kingdom, working with fire. She is inclined to say that they have gotten further in their work and research than anyone had anticipated. 

Against what is perhaps her better judgement, Azula joins the scuffle. Her left arm falls uselessly at her side while kicks fire and punches several bursts with her good arm. She ducks under an arm or two and gives a sweeping kick, catching the by the ankles and sending them colliding with the ground. She snaps up and offers her next opponent a faceful of fire. 

She keeps close to the cart, having no time to free Dr. Yu-Kang, she does her best to keep her out of their reach. She supposes that she owes the woman that much for having dragged her into this in the first place. She glances over at her therapist. The woman nods her head and Azula follows the direction of the nod just on time to dodge a particularly large boulder. She returns it with another blast of her own. 

“You’re alright!” Someone shouts. 

Azula doesn’t have time to feel relieved or thrilled to see Sokka.She also can’t afford to be distracted by the sight of Zuzu either. She ducks down again and comes up with an arc of fire. “Depends what you mean by alright.” She huffs when she has the chance. 

From above a rock smashes into her stomach. It steals the wind from her lungs and lands her on her back. Her shoulder flares and her vision goes momentarily fuzzy. She doesn’t even have the breath to whimper. 

  
She is furious with herself for not having paid better attention. She’d been focusing entirely on the ground level. Dr Yu-Kang hadn’t been trying to warn her of the boulder. She had been nodding towards the platform that it had been launched from. 

She is so stupid. No wonder they have taken her so easily, not once but twice. 

She cringes at the implication that she is losing her touch. 

Azula pushes herself to her feet only to find her arms caught in twin streams of water. At first she thinks of Katara, but the woman is all the way on the other side of their battlefield. She follow the length of the water arms to where they end.

At Long Feng. 

She scowls as he leaps down and behind her, catching her in a chokehold, not unlike the one she’d had the Earth King in. There is fire poised at her throat.

“I take it that you’re here for the Avatar too?” She wheezes. 

“I’ll have him and his airbending, yes.” Long Feng replies. “But at the moment, I have a taste for blue fire. I think that it will truly set me apart.” 

**.oOo.**

Sokka flinches. He’d just let Long Feng grab her! He isn’t even sure where the man had come from. He thinks that the man may have risen up from beneath the earth, though there is too much chaos for him to be certain. 

He watches Long Feng elevate himself with a rumbling display of earthbending. “Hand the avatar to me!” he calls down. “And I won’t kill the princess.”

“You can’t kill her, you need her!” Toph tries. 

“I don’t need her alive to harvest her chi points as long as I do it quickly enough.” 

“Let her go!” Zuko demands. 

“Avatar first.” 

Zuko presses his lips together and exchanges a look with Aang. Sokka reaches for his boomerang. 

“I wouldn’t do that.” Long Feng warns. “This looks highly flammable.” He takes a handful of Azula’s bangs. After a moment of pause his face contorts with rage and he rips her crown from her hair and flights it to the ground at Sokka’s feet. Her hair falls over her shoulders. “She’s got a lot of it too.” 

It chills Sokka to the core, how terribly blank her face is. 

“Give me the Avatar, now!” He demands, the flame licks dangerously close to the princess. Still she doesn’t even flinch. 

“Take the Avatar away from here.” Azula demands cooly. “Long Feng doesn’t even have control or respect for fire, how can he…”

Long Fang twists her arm back and her mask of indifference falls away. She cries out, her body seems to fall slack. 

This time it is Sokka’s expression that twists with rage. 

Azula lifts her head again. “Just take the Avatar and go. I was supposed to have died in that tundra anyways…” 

“You should have died much sooner than that.” Long Feng scowls. 

“We’re not going to let him kill you.” Zuko declares. 

“I’ll go with you.” Aang volunteers. 

Azula shakes her head and Sokka’s stomach plummets further. He knows her. He knows exactly what she is going to do. And she does it before he can even shout, “no.” She throws all of her weight back against Long Feng, sending them both toppling from the platform. It is too high, and at that angle…

Sokka cringes as their bodies hit the floor. He hears several cracks and Azula rolls from the man’s grasp. Her body comes to a halt, sprawled several feet from Long Feng’s. It is horrifically still. Long locks of black hair obscure her face. Even if they weren’t he still can’t see her eyes from this distance. 

He is terrified of what he won’t see in them. 

He makes it to her side before Zuko does and scoops her into his arms. Her neck doesn’t seem broken, but she might have hit her head…

She is so limp. 

So limp but he can feel her chest weakly rising and falling as he holds her against him. He prays to Raava that she has only blacked out from stress and pain. 

Her breathing grows weaker still. 

“We didn’t finish talking.” He mumbles, giving her cheek a few light and rousing pats. “Wake up, we still have an argument to finish.” 


	43. Only Traces

She still hasn’t awoken yet and it has been three hours. Three hours and she hasn’t shown any signs of waking. Katara is adamant that she’ll probably need more than a few hours to, even if she only had blacked out from pain. She speculates that Azula had put her body in a state of shock. He wouldn’t be surprised to find that his sister is correct, Azula has sustained so much damage. Her face is decently bruised, there is a particularly large knot on her forehead and it is a very painful looking purple-yellow. Her arm is bound in a cast; her shoulder had to be popped back into place and her ulna had snapped from the fall. It had taken the brunt of the fall and protruded rather grotesquely from beneath the skin. He would have passed out if it had been his own arm. Her ribs aren’t in a much better state. Though they haven’t broken, they are cracked and if they aren’t careful with her, they could break. 

The doctors had told him that he was lucky that he hadn’t broken them when cradling her in his arms. 

Sokka swallows, just how much pain can one person go through in their lifetime. He takes her right hand and rubs the back of it with his thumb. He thinks that he can set his anger aside for now, there will be time to talk about that later. 

More hours pass and she still doesn’t wake. He wonders if she had hit her head too. Zuko stops in to check on her every now and again and Sokka always hands him the same news, “no, she’s still out.”

For once it is reassuring to hear her cry out in her sleep, at least he knows that she is still alive. He only leaves the bedside once to go to the bathroom and then one more time to fix the both of them a meal, just in case she woke up.

**.oOo.**

Azula squints against the sunlight drifting in. She watches dust moats float about in the rays like plankton in a sea. She is surprised to find that she doesn’t ache all over. Mostly she feels a faint beating on her forehead and pressure along her ribcage.

She takes a deep breath that sends sharp pangs through her ribcage. She is more or less fully alert now and it settles in that she is still alive. She had been certain that she the jump would have been the end of her. A sacrifice for the better of the universe and a last reach for freedom. 

She inhales again, this time with more care. She is still alive. 

Sokka wanders into the room and she isn’t sure if it makes her feel anxious or relieved. She can ask a great many things, if Long Feng was dead, if they’d finished off the rest of the Research Facility, if he is okay, if Zuko is okay, if Aang is okay…

Her mind might still be in a state of disorientation because instead of any of those things, she inquires, “where’s Dr. Yu-Kang?” Or maybe it is that she feels like she is responsible for the older woman for having put her into the eye of the chaos. 

“She’s somewhere here in the palace, she wanted to wait until you woke up to go back to Fire Lake.” Sokka replies. “She’s just got a few bruises.”

Azula nods and puts her head back against the pillow. At least the only person that her miscalculation and underestimation hurt is herself. She supposes that that is how it usually goes. 

“What about you?”

“Not a scratch.” Sokka replies. “It was only you and Long Feng who got seriously hurt. Everyone else had bruises and cuts. The worst one was a scientist who broke his ankle in the frenzy.”

“What did you do with Long Feng?”

“We...uh...put him in a morgue.” 

“Oh.” Azula says flatly. Granted, killing him had been the idea, but out of the warzone it no longer sits well with her. Not entirely. She knows that it is what needed to be done, especially with him having acquired skills and knowledge that ought not be accessed. But she still isn’t thrilled to have blood on her hands. And this time it will stain. 

They already think that she is a monster…

“You were just trying to keep everyone safe.” Sokka speaks up again. “Like you said I did with Sparky Boom Man.”

“Sparky Boom Man…” She repeats the nickname in a mutter. Though that had not been the point of his words. 

“It worked.” Sokka smiles. “We didn’t have to risk Aang or the balance of the universe!”

Azula supposes that this is good news, instead of killing Aang, she’d saved him. She wonders if that balances things out. “My head hurts.” She mumbles groggily. 

“I can get Katara, if you want.” Sokka offers. “She’s been taking care of…” he gestures to her arm and ribs. 

She frowns, “I can’t firebend like this.” 

Sokka ruffles her hair. “Maybe you should take a break from firebending and fighting for a while.”

She lies back again and tries to get comfortable but the achiness is beginning to settle in and the casts are very restrictive. She feels along the nightstand and is pleased to find a glass of water. She sits up once more to take a sip.

**.oOo.**

Azula goes quiet again and he realizes that she has fallen back asleep. At least he thinks she has until she mutters, “a break would be nice.” She doesn’t open her eyes. This time she does fall asleep again. She doesn’t rise until the next morning.

And when she rises, she truly rises. 

He hadn’t expected to see her on her feet so soon, mostly because she was supposed to be bed bound for a few days by the doctor’s orders. She dismisses this when he mentions this and plucks herself down into a chair.

“The doctor…” he tries again.

“Is used to this.” She replies. “She and her team have been seeing me since I was a child. They know that I don’t stay put.” She flicks her bed-tousled bangs with her good hand. “I know my limits.” 

He looks her over and wonders if she is overestimating herself. “It doesn’t hurt to move around so much?” 

Azula shakes her head. “It’s more bothersome to feel myself getting stiff.” The conversation breaks off and she picks out one of the many breakfast dishes on the table. She seems rather content all things considered. After she has her fill she sets her bowl aside and seems to look off.

He hates when she does this because he never knows what she will say when she finally speaks up again. 

What he doesn’t expect is for her to quietly wander away without warning or so much as a parting word. He is angry all over again. Angry and frustrated because he doesn’t understand how she can just walk away in the middle of a conversation that seemed to be going well. He hadn’t even bought up what had made him angry yet! 

**.oOo.**

It hit so suddenly. So suddenly that it takes her aback. Perhaps her mind has finally managed to catch up with her waking body. Perhaps the merciful fog of shock and sleepiness has cleared Whatever it is, over breakfast the weight of everything finally begins to settle in; she’d been locked up again, she’d been abused again, she’d flung herself off of a cliff and everyone is acting like it is just an ordinary day…

She knows that the nightmares are going to resurface again, likely more potent than before having been dragged beneath Lake Laogai and threatened with more torture. She counts herself lucky in that she had been too focused and hellbent on survival to unravel. 

But now that she is home and aware she can feel that phantom tingling traipsing over the lines of her scars. Visions and horrible moments begin to replay in her mind and this time with fuller clarity and understanding. 

And on top of it all she knows that Sokka is still angry. That she hasn’t gotten a chance to ask him why…

Azula doesn’t think that she will make it to her room, especially not with her ribs to slow her down. She doesn’t want to do this in front of everyone but, Agni, it’s overwhelming. She carefully sits down and props herself up against the wall, she can’t take up her usual defensive position so she simply sits there shivering and with her head against the wall as everything she has been dealing with closes in.

Until her mind is sucked back into the dark room and the palace rafters shape themselves into fluorescent veins of purple. 

Her scars twitch and sting. Suddenly the fiery feeling in her ribs is a ripping and tearing sensation. Distantly in her mind she knows that it is over, but that part is buried beneath a wave of panic and anxiety. 

She doesn’t realize that she has laid herself down until she feels arms carefully lifting her up. The owner of those arms is lucky that she can’t snap into a firebending form. She is lucky that she is in no condition to impulsively lash out, but that doesn’t sink in until well after she finds herself back in the present. Frankly, it is fuzzy what she has been doing for the last half an hour. According to Sokka she’d only been mumbling and occasionally shouting. 

He’d saved her quite a bit of dignity in telling passerbys that she was crying out because she’d pushed herself too soon and managed to hurt herself again. 

Still it isn’t an image that she likes for herself. 

**.oOo.**

Sokka feels awful for being happy to see her cry. Maybe happy isn’t the right word so much as relieved is. It isn’t because she had been crying--even if it was only a little--it is because she still can cry. Because she is still there, beneath layers of rebuilt walls and hesitations, is the woman he’d pulled out of the tundra. 

He just hopes that this will be the last time that he will find her having flashbacks. Hopes, but doubts. He can’t imagine that the nightmares will go away. Again, he finds himself feeling guilty, wondering how many nightmares it had taken for her to finally decide that she’d needed to ship herself back to Fire Lake Institute. 

Maybe he should just let it go? Though that doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem fair that his feelings should be ignored because hers are more potent. Maybe he has some degree of masochism because he finds himself asking, once again, “what’s wrong?”

He braces himself for a conversation about how he’d been a jerk and how he’d indirectly led to her capture and beaten body. Instead she hesitates for the longest time before saying, “I keep pushing people away.” 

“Why?” Sokka asks.

She furrows her brows.

“Why couldn’t you just let me  _ stay  _ in. You let me in, why did you push me out?”

“Because everyone leaves me, I’d rather force someone out than let them walk out.” She replies. “And it just…” she trails off. “It felt...strange. Like I wasn’t the one who got close to you.” 

Sokka frowns more to himself than towards or at her. He probably should have given her more time to adjust to her memories. “You didn’t have to tell me that I wasted my time. A simple ‘we’ll talk about it later,’ would have worked.” 

“I’m not good at talking to people, Sokka.”

“You were doing just fine…”

“And then I got my memories back and it was…” she draws out her pause as though it is a struggle to get the concluding word out, “confusing.” She pauses again. “I told Dr. Yu-Kang that it felt ingenuine. It felt, it feels like people have taken a liking to someone who isn’t me.” 

Sokka swallows, “that’s not true, I told you that I could be patient…”

“Dr. Yu-Kang told me that I simply have new facets.” 

“New facets?”   
  


“That there isn’t an old me and a new me. I am just…” she finishes in a sight, “myself.” She pauses again. “Just myself but with new ideals and opinions.” 

“Do you think so?”

Azula seems to think for a moment before giving him an affirmative nod. “It’s just...difficult. Because some of these new ideals directly conflict with old viewpoints.” 

Sokka manages a half smile. He supposes that that is a start. A start that she apparently intends to finish.

“Things about Zuzu and about you and your people. Your culture.” 

He thinks that it might be making her feel better to talk about this. That it is an ample distraction from her earlier distress. 

“I wasn’t using you.” She remarks. “I’m not using you.” He watches her burrow her head into her pillow. He can tell that she isn’t comfortable sleeping on her back. 

“Then why did you say it?”

“To get you to leave.” She replies. “It worked.”

“No kidding.” He grumbles. 

“And then I decided that I didn’t want it to have worked. Especially not so well.” She reaches for the glass of water and he hands it to her. She has a drink and puts it to the side. Though Sokka is fairly certain that the gesture was only done as a means to buy herself some time to think over what she will say next. “You didn’t waste your time.”

This time Sokka’s smile is more or less whole. Even if it isn’t an apology and even if her words are a little lackluster, he is thrilled that she chose to talk about what was bothering him without him having to start the discussion. 

That she was addressing what was upsetting before her own stressors. 

It occurs to him that it very well may bother her to know that she had upset him. 

“Good, because I was starting to worry that I did.” He takes her hand as he usually would, she lets him do it.

She shakes her head and he feels her hand tighten around his. “I just need time to get used to things.” 

“I said that I’d be patient.” Sokka mentions again.

“I was hoping to speak with you about this sooner.” Azula mutters. “And then all of this happened and I…”

“Decided to talk about it at the first chance you got.” He laughs. “When I asked you what was wrong, I thought that we’d be talking about what just happened.”

“That was bothering me more.” She shrugs.

  
  


“Do you want to talk about what else is bothering you.” 

“There is nothing else, really. I don’t have to worry about Long Feng anymore. I don’t have to worry about being alone. I guess that there are nightmares to deal with...” 

“Do you want me to spend the night in your room, like I used to?” 

“I don’t think that I will be able to sleep well if you don’t.”

He brushes her hair out of her face. “I’ll get my sleeping bag.”

She seems to think for a moment. “I can fit at least three of myself in this bed, there’s room for you.” 

“Do you want the pillow between us again?” He offers. 

She looks faintly amused at this. “I’ll just shove you off of the bed if you get too close.”

Nevermind that she is usually the one to cling onto things in her sleep. 

**.oOo.**

Azula finds herself surprised at how easy it is, how naturally it comes to let him get close again. There are still lingering traces of awkwardness. Vestiges of old ideals. But she pushes them aside. She moves over to give Sokka room.

He sleeps facing her and she, resentfully, resigns to having to sleep on her back. She turns her head to face him and he smiles.

It is familiar and comforting. 

Enough to ease some of her reluctance.

“Good night, Azula.” She feels his hand brush hers again. She isn’t one for impulses but she lets this one slip. She takes his hand and holds it to her. Decidedly her need for consolation and soothing outweighs much of her hesitance. 

It is easier when conjuring images of friendlier nights. Nights when he’d just come and stay with her just because he wanted to.


	44. The Phoenix

Azula is doing significantly better now that she has had some time to process things. Her movements are still very slow and cautious, if she twists the wrong way she can feel it flaring in her ribs. He is much more patient with her than she is. Sokka, in fact, seems to enjoy taking their walks at more a more leisurely pace as opposed to her usual brisk walking speed. 

She supposes that it has its perks to take things slower. They have time to talk and, Agni, do they have a lot to talk about. Somehow, she finds it easier to be open when she is out in the open; out in the fresh air. 

“Let’s sit down for a moment.” Admittedly, she doesn’t give him much of a choice as she is already heading for the bench. But her sides are starting to throb and she doesn’t want to feel achy for the rest of the day. 

Sokka finds a spot next to her. Things have been less tense these days, having already combed through a decently lengthy list of things that have been bothering them. Mostly Sokka had still been weary that she will come to decide that she doesn’t need nor want him around. She has given him plenty of proof that such is a possibility. And with that discussion came one about just how much it had bothered him to hear her say that he’d wasted his time--an uncomfortable conversation to say the least. One that left her feeling as though she probably shouldn’t so readily toss out off-handed remarks in arguments. Though, she supposes that that was likely how she was supposed to feel. 

She hadn’t said much after that and they’d finished that walk in silence. 

The next walk was spent discussing how he’d felt betrayed and hurt. Another terribly discomforting conversation. She thinks that he was fishing for an apology but she still can’t bring herself to say it outright. 

And then it was back to his dread that she was going to leave him and fall back into trying to hurt he and his friends. This was probably the most uncomfortable discussion. She tries not to reflect too much on her past, bringing once more, the feeling that she shouldn’t have chased her memories at all. In part she is glad for her discomfort because it seems to reassure him some. And even more so when Zuko invites himself into the conversation and she lets him stay. 

Generally she gets along with him too.

Today is an easier day, conversation is kept rather mundane until he speaks up, “we’ve been talking about me and my problems a lot. Is there anything that’s still bothering you?”

She thinks for a moment. Decidedly, much of her dreads are working themselves away. The Vine Research Facility has been dismantled and their notes confiscated and hidden away. Part of her wishes that they’d burn them away, the logical part of her recoils at the thought of any sort of knowledge being reduced to ash. Much of the research team had been arrested. She hasn’t much to fear from them. 

She has come to decide that she hasn’t much to fear from herself either. Several old habits and a degree of unhealthy pride remain. Even so, she finds it easier than she had anticipated to let go of old grudges having them so heavily eclipsed by newer and fonder memories. 

Ultimately she shakes her head, “There isn’t really anything.” 

Sokka blinks, “so what you’re saying is that I did nothing wrong?”

“You misinterpret me, Sokka.” She replies. “You did your part. It doesn’t particularly bother me though.”

“Well what did I do wrong?”

She rolls her eyes. “I think that you already know.” But she recalls that she isn’t exactly an easy person to read. “When I ask for space or time, give it to me.” 

“But you like to do that thing where you tell people to leave you alone even though you want someone to comfort you.”

He has a solid point. “Leave me alone when I tell you to do so and then come back in an hour or so.” She says.

Sokka nods, “I guess that that’s reasonable.” 

“You want to say something else.” Azula observes. “I can tell.” She truly hopes that he isn’t going to spark up another conversation about her colder demeanor or about how things aren’t the same as they were a few months back. 

“I was just wondering what exactly we are?” 

“I am a firebender. You are a non-bender from the Southern Water Tribe. We are both humans.” 

She hears Sokka inhale deeply, “that’s not what I meant.” 

“Then you are going to have to specify.” 

“Are we still…?” He starts. “Do you still love me?”

The question puts a nervous fluttering in her belly. She tries not to hesitate too much before answering, “yes.” She isn’t sure why it is so terribly awkward to express love. To express anything at all. Perhaps it is the sense of vulnerability that comes with doing so.

“Yes.” He flashes a little grin. A mischievous one. She realizes it when he asks, “yes what. I’m a buffoon, remember, I need clarification.” 

He just has to make things as difficult as possible. She clears her throat. “Yes I still...love you.” 

“Great, I was hoping so!” Without thinking he throws his arms around her and quickly apologizes when she winces. He withdraws his hug and settles for squeezing her hand that isn’t trapped in a sling and cast. 

**.oOo.**

He wants to hold her again, but the physicians still advise against it. “You don’t want to put unnecessary pressure on her ribs.” They say. Even if he is doing it in good spirit. It brings color to his cheeks to have forgotten that warning. 

Yet, to an extent, he couldn’t help it. He was exhilarated and relieved to finally here her say it again, that she loved him. Even if she is being awkward about it. It is a start and he’ll take the small victory. 

Evidently he believes that it is actually a rather large victory. It is much more satisfying to realize that he’d won the heart of the princess despite her walls.

“Are you ready to walk again?”

“Yes.” 

Sokka stands first and helps the princess to her feet, ignoring her mumbling about how she can do it herself. He tucks her bangs behind her ears and brushes his lips against hers, a test of the waters. It would seem that the sea is calm today, the waves don’t push him away. So he puts more passion into the kiss. 

He is pleasantly surprised to find that she returns the kiss. Azula is much gentler than he expects. He isn’t sure why he finds it unexpected, her kisses had been soft the last few times he’d had the chance. 

“This isn’t exactly walking.” She mutters. 

“I think that it’s better than walking.” He shrugs, entirely pleased with himself. 

She begins striding towards the palace garden and he hustles to catch up. The rest of their walk is simpler, conversation is lighter, more mundane. More comfortable, natural. 

He thinks that the kiss has already made a difference. 

A gentle nudge or two is what Azula needs. Maybe a few gentle nudges until she gets used to expressing romance. 

When they reach the turtle duck pond she holds him around the middle, as well as she can anyhow. He suppose that he doesn’t mind behind held instead of doing the holding. He thinks that it makes her feel more comfortable to take on that role anyways. Likely it makes her feel less vulnerable to do the holding.

“Can you even see the turtle duck pond?” He asks. 

“All I see is your back, Sokka.” She murmurs into his shirt. 

“Then stand next to me.” He suggests. He feels her arm slip away as she comes to stand next to him. For the longest time they watch koi swim about beneath turtle ducks as the setting sun casts its warmly colored reflection on the water. 

It has a much different atmosphere than the auroras do, but the feelings that the sunset evokes are the same. 

She reaches her arm out to sling it over his shoulders but she is too small so she settles for putting it around his back.

They watch the orange of the sunset deepen into a vibrant red. A true Fire Nation sunset. He pushes her hair out of the way again and leans down to kiss her forehead. He doesn’t know that Zuko had caught them until the next day when he hears him teasing a very unamused Azula for going soft.

**.oOo.**

Azula can’t remember the last time her nightmares have woken her. She doesn’t exactly remember what she has dreamed, just that it had a purple overlay and a malevolent energy. She shakes the vestiges of her nightmare away. They are losing their potency but it is still nice to be able to roll over and curl her arms around Sokka. The man is deeply asleep and she decides that she doesn’t have to wake him this time. But he wakes anyhow to find her face snuggled against his back. She feels his hand come to cover her own. 

“Can’t sleep?” He asks.

“I’ll be fine.” She replies. 

It is wonderful to say. Wonderful to genuinely believe. For the first time in ages she is fine. Truly fine. Fine and untroubled. Her moments of happiness aren’t tainted by a sense of foreboding nor a feeling that something is missing. 

She is whole and she is finally comfortable being whole. 

It may have taken a good while and several more visits to Dr. Yu-Kang, but her new and old memories have finally reconciled with one another and merged more or less seamlessly. 

Dr. Yu-Kang, bless the woman’s soul, has done her so well. So well in fact that she had hired the woman on as part of the palace staff. A position that she had taken very well to, the princess has caught the old woman using the spa several times. She supposes that the woman has earned it. Especially knowing that she is going to have her hands very full when Azula decides to make amends with her mother and uncle.

And Dr. Phang...she hasn’t heard from him in a while but the last she had, it had been in a letter that he’d written informing her that he was working to undo some of the damage that had been done to test subjects in the Vine Research Facility. He mentioned something of taking Yion as an apprentice. 

Azula sits up and stretches her arms. The casts have been off for some time now. In general, she is in good health. Now the only thing to show of her former torment are her missing finger and the scars on her arms and belly. Scars that Sokka traces his pointer along when she lays back down, staring at the ceiling. His finger stops momentarily at the puncture scar just above her fire chakra before he resumes his trailing. It is slow and steady and lulls her back to sleep. 

It is much easier to sleep with healed ribs and an untroubled mind. An unconflicted mind; she is whole again. Whole and balanced. And in some way, she thinks that she has been reborn. Each facet of her has harmonized with every other to a point where it is no longer difficult to roll onto her side and nuzzle herself closer to Sokka. As best as he can for his position, he massages her shoulders. Perhaps it is a treat for surprising him with a birthday dinner under the lights. 

She closes her eyes.

The tundra winds pummel the side of the house, but she is warm. 


End file.
